Tag Archives: 2016

Review: Train to Busan (South Korea 2016)

Holy shit, THAT is how you do a zombie movie! I’m not usually a fan of fast zombies, but this mash-up of 28 Days Later’s panicky plague and Snowpiercer’s “class war on a train” is great fun, wasting little time … Continue reading

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Review: Captain America: Civil War (USA 2016)

Entertaining enough, for a lumbering behemoth that had to service over a dozen major characters and advance multiple plot threads.

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Review:  Creepy (Japan 2016)

Creepy marks something of a return to form for the one-time po-mo J-horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa.  There was a point in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Kurosawa was one of the most exciting filmmakers working, and his every … Continue reading

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Review: Shin Godzilla (Japan 2016)

As a Godzilla fan of the old school, I’ve always loathed the occasional American attempts at the Big G – whether the truly awful Matthew Broderick version or the decent-monster-movie-but-in-no-way-Godzilla attempt by Gareth Edwards from 2014 – but I think … Continue reading

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Review: Phantasm: Ravager (USA 2016)

It breaks my heart to have to give this film a bad review. I love the Phantasm film series. The first one is a freaky trip, and the second one is a campy, action-packed blast – and both do an … Continue reading

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Review: Hacksaw Ridge (USA 2016)

If this steaming pile of garbage could get nominated for Best Picture, I guess that is definitive proof that Mel “Sugar Tits” Gibson has been forgiven by the Hollywood community. Hacksaw Ridge commits the worst sin of war movies – … Continue reading

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Review: Love and Friendship (UK 2016)

I have had a deep affection for Whit Stillman since his Barcelona helped open my eyes to indie cinema in the 90s, and I also love me some Jane Austen (though generally the books far than the movie adaptations). So … Continue reading

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Review: Arrival (USA 2016)

This big budget, somewhat highbrow science-fiction picture ultimately glossed over potentially interesting scientific and technical material in favor of an emotional angle on the material, and also forced me to watch the pile of anti-charisma that is Jeremy Renner.

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Review: Suicide Squad (USA 2016)

Based on the critical reaction, I went to this with very low expectations, and the film lived down to every single one. The first third of the film is a series of progressively less interesting introductions, the overarching plot is … Continue reading

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Best of 2016 (so far)

So, my thoughts on the year’s best before Oscar anoints La La Land. As noted before, I tend to catch a lot of the late year prestige films … well, late, so my Oscar-time opinions have some caveats. That said, … Continue reading

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