Reviews

I love the way in which the story is separated into small significant sections, where Lisa discovers her love, searches for his recognition, gives up hope, finds her hope again, finally succeeds, looses his recognition, looses hope, gives up her love.

The look of the film is okay and there are good actors in the mix (aside from Gyllenhaal, I'd say some serious credit has to go to Jamie Foxx for making the most of what could have been another thankless drill sergeant role), plus there's the occasional decent scene, but it's ultimately a pretty dry...

A good example is how Walken criticises Farrell's screenplay for its badly-written female characters, yet the film itself is arguably guilty of the same flaw in a way where intent seems irrelevant.

Spotlight can be written off as a film where the focus on depicting actual events (or at least depicting the discovery of actual events) and delivering a timely screed about an important subject can prevent it from coming across as a genuine classic.

Despite being an obvious Mad Max knock-off, or perhaps BECAUSE it's an obvious Mad Max knock-off, The New Barbarians somehow manages to be better than both Turbo Kid and Death Race 2000 when it comes to it's action.

If you actually did watch the movie before reading this, then my favorite part will undoubtedly be your favorite part too.

The band, Nightwish, themselves appear throughout the movie lending a rocking soundtrack to some of the more dramatic plot beats, but they're mostly out of sight while the characters themselves wax back and forth about their predicaments.

The movie even made me laugh a couple times and after seeing it I desperately want to see more movies follow in it's footsteps and pay homages to those "totally rad" movies of the past the same way Black Dynamite parodied and exemplified the blaxploitation genre.

Even when Pryor is indulging some flaccid comedy, he's still preferable to the actual Superman-based narrative, which involves things such as Clark Kent visiting his rural hometown of Smallville and reconnecting with an old flame, to say nothing of the fact that the villain's plan to incapacitate Su...

Some lovely island-influenced music and some beautiful location photography are the final touches on this warm and richly human comedy drama that documents Alexander Payne as a movie maker to be reckoned with.