Category: Film

The strangest thing about the Madagascar franchise, I feel, is that the funniest jokes in both of them are Twilight Zone references … and they both happened on planes – the other strange thing is how anyone can think that the character designs of the four leads are anything approaching pleasant.

Madagascar: Back 2 Africa is not only an example of obnoxious number substituting for a word (at least Step Up 2 The Streets did it with class), it’s also a prime example of franchising a property whose title is thematically incompatible with any sequels. Even if there are more Kung Fu Panda films (freakin’ five of them), they could either make sense due to the continued presence of Po or present a series of films named for separate members of the Furious Five.

Escape 2 Africa, however, is a vaguely racist, all-over-the-place movie that once and for all proves that black people zebras all look the same and share a uniculture, and once again showcases a theatrical son whose father is disappointed he isn’t a “real lion”. Hmm indeed.
I guess it’s not terrible, though, so that’s probably something.

Today I found myself wondering “am I right to criticise these godawful children’s movies, given that I’m not in the demographic, and the children seem to enjoy them?” Then I realised that the children of this world deserve better, and I am within my rights to a tear a new one for whatever property I see fit.

Bedtime Stories is one such property: with improbably dull eyed kids who teeter between brilliance and mental incompetence, drama so manufactured that no level of suspension can contain the disbelief, a cast slumming it to the extent that they may as well have gone to work in a city of mole people, and comedy such that, were it not for the inclusion of Russell Brand, Rob Schneider would be the funniest thing in the movie, it’s simply unacceptable.

Last year, I didn’t get farther than writing about the First Day of the 11th Japanese Film Festival. With the 12th Japanese Film Festival starting tomorrow, this situation should be remedied at once, upon my honour as a Japanese Film Festival attender.

Rest assured! I will be brought to justice! And keep in mind that this is based on a few potted sentences I wrote at the time and my vague recollections of each film. I will try with all my might not to be a revisionist historian, because I hate when people do that with movies.

This is the list of the films for last year, for reference.

In one presidential term’s time, the economy has failed completely. With massive inflation, many have turned to lives of crime, and the prison system is now an overloaded and privatised industry where the inmates are forced to race each other to the death for their freedom. Man, that’s one angry homo.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever left a movie quite so depressed as when I left Rocknrolla. I’m well aware that Eagle Eye made me hate movies, but for Rocknrolla I found myself bereft of words. When I see movies, even as I’m watching them I think what to write about them. Most of it never gets written or published, but I edit and revise in my head as I go along nonetheless. On Rocknrolla I drew a blank. The movie itself is like an oyster interrupted: an almost imperceptible gleam of a pearl surrounded by excrement. Some o fit doesn’t make sense, even if you’re paying attention. Some of it is obvious to the point of insulting. Most notably, the macguffin is the fucking briefcase from Pulp Fiction (so, too, is the gay S&M torture rape scene, this time in Russian!).
It may be a waste, but hey!, at least it’s a long and tedious one.

It’s quite possible that, in my life, I had never seen Temple of Doom before tonight. I remember my parents happily buying Raiders and The Last Crusade from McDonalds back in 1993 (yes, they sold Indiana Jones videos at McDonalds), but refusing to buy Temple of Doom because they didn’t like it.

I can’t blame them. It really isn’t a very good movie.

I’ll start by making the following perfectly clear: I do not recommend Burn After Reading. I found it hilarious practically from start to finish but I’m pretty sure that a lot of people will flat out hate it and, if you’re one of them, I don’t want you to pin it on me.
Of course, if you’re American, it’s done and dusted. In Australia, the fun is only beginning. My audience laughed a lot, and it was a pretty much sold out advance screening (seat E3, baby): but at the same time as the laughter was happening, some were heard to say “this is ridiculous!” And it is. It really is.