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Well, right off the bat this movie screams IT’S THE SAME DIRECTOR AS INCEPTION. The familiar cast members, the editing, colour-scheme and the over-complicated storyline were just a few of the tell-tale Nolan signs.
However, as I am a massive Inception fan, I was not upset about this. In fact, I was hoping to see more of the same cast (where’s Leo at?). Continue reading
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From the director of Superbad, and the creators of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, comes Paul.
A story about a laid-back alien called Paul (Seth Rogan) who is on the run from the government across the States before getting picked up by a couple of geeky tourists, Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost). Graeme and Clive attended Comic-Con before travelling to various locations where UFOs have been sighted in an RV, until they get a closer encounter than they expected!… Continue reading
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It is a sci-fi horror about Ray (Tom Cruise) and his two children Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and Robbie (Justin Chatwin) trying to escape the alien invasion. The aliens are relentless and terrifying as they displace millions.
There’s no where to run, there’s no where to hide and there’s no way to kill the aliens and their machines.
Horrifying!… Continue reading
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What a shame.
I love The Sixth Sense. I love The Village. I love Split. Unbreakable was pretty cool. But how has Signs not kept up with the Shyamalan grade?
I love a good sci-fi thriller as much as the next person, but this had all the potential and none of the thrills… Continue reading
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Cloverfield is basically The Blair Witch Project but set during an apocalypse in a city, rather than a witch hunt in the woods. I thought it would be an easy watch, and perhaps even a good film as I’ve always heard it being referenced to.
(Not to be confused with 10 Cloverfield Lane, which is the second instalment.)… Continue reading
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The Sixth Sense is another Shyamalan creation that everyone must see. It’s about a psychiatrist called Malcolm (Bruce Willis) who tries to help a traumatised and anxious child named Cole (Haley Joel Osment).
Cole reminds Malcolm of a patient he failed to save back in the day, the patient killed himself and Malcolm became adamant that he will never fail another patient again. Therefore, he persists in helping Cole despite his reluctance, and eventually Cole confides in him: “I see dead people.”… Continue reading
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I’ve watched Peggy Sue Got Married with Dad before, and I remember it being quite an enjoyable film.
I had forgotten about its existence until Kathleen Turner was on the television (as she’s now a singer) and I was absolutely transfixed by the way she spoke. Not only was the sound of her voice hypnotising and famously distinctive, but also the way she told stories.
It wasn’t long before they mentioned ‘Peggy Sue Got Married’. I Googled her to find out which character she played, and couldn’t believe she was the Peggy Sue!
I immediately bought the film and we watched it on the weekend and how we laughed… Continue reading
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From the brain behind The Boat that Rocked, Notting Hill, Love Actually and Bridget Jones comes a warm and fuzzy, all-nice, all-good, hot chocolate and cuddles on a rainy day kind of story. It’s called About Time.  (If you loved Driving Lessons, then I think you’d enjoy this film.)
I love coming of age films, there’s nothing better than seeing bog-standard, everyday man-on-the-street kind of characters on the tellie, accomplishing the extraordinary and telling you that everything will be alright in the end… Continue reading
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Having recently reviewed Source Code – a sci-fi film starring Jake Gyllenhaal – I realised how similar that film’s concept is to Edge of Tomorrow. It was then that I realised that I have never reviewed Edge of Tomorrow! So here it is… Continue reading
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I love time travel films! This is a brilliantly simple story combined with the mind-bending possibilities of time travel.Â
‘Source Code’ is a top-secret military experimental operation where injured pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is given the ability to repeatedly relive the final eight minutes of a man’s life. The man is Sean Fentress who dies in an explosion on a train. Each time Stevens relives the final eight minutes of this man’s life, he is given the opportunity to seek out the person responsible for planting the bomb on the train in an attempt to stop it from ever happening… Continue reading
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Did anyone else not realise that Unbreakable is a prequel to Split?
As soon as we found out, we got our hands on the DVD since we loved Split so much.
You can tell it is an M. Night Shyamalan film immediately. The looooooong shots, the reflections in televisions and glass… The list goes on – it’s very Shyamalan-y.
Unbreakable is about Bruce Willis’s character who discovers he’s invincible. He’s essentially a superhero… Continue reading
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Another brilliant film from M. Night Shyamalan. It’s the best kind of story – the kind that you’ll be thinking about for days.
For me, Split is a return to Shyamalan’s trademark of well-rounded characters and fantastic storylines. It’s a film that echoes the genius of The Village and The Sixth Sense.
Split is about a man called Kevin Wendell-Crumb (James McAvoy, whose talent will be gushed upon shortly) who has 23 personalities… Continue reading
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A heart-breaking story about, not the person who leaves, but the person who’s perpetually left behind.
I like this unusual perspective, particularly since time-travel is such an attractive, but foreign, concept. Yet, the story is focused on the more human and deeply relatable themes.
I’ve heard the book is fantastic – I’m going to read it this summer. But, the movie is exquisite. If you haven’t seen or read The Time Traveler’s Wife, the low-down is that a man is a time traveller and his wife is not. The time traveller, named Henry (Eric Bana) can’t control his travelling, so his impromptu disappearances and reappearances become a way of life for his wife Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams)… Continue reading
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My fellow time travellers and time travel enthusiasts! ’tis 2015 – the year that Back to the Future 2 predicted and depicted!
Before I begin, I would like to make it clear, in the defence of Back to the Future’s creators, that the 2015 shown is merely a possible future. In the same film, we see how easily it can be changed. Therefore, perhaps their prediction is totally accurate, just not the reality that came to be.
I shall bend your minds. And you will like it.
Now, I know there are many angry fans who are aware of the lack of hover boards and flying cars. But don’t get fangry. I’m sure we’ll get what we were promised. One day.
In the movie, they showed October 21st, 2015. So we do still have some time up our sleeves to make all our dreams come true. But let’s see how accurate they have been so far… Continue reading
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(Prepare to see a lot of screen grabs with quotes from this film around. The script is so poetic.)
Her is a sci-fi romance, drama hybrid that premiered at the 2013 New York Film Festival.
It’s set in the near future where rather than keeping one’s head down – staring at a phone screen – people now have an ear piece that respond to voice commands.
The operational system – or OS – that performs the requests now have personalities, and for all intense and purposes, are a personal assistant with feelings and emotions equal in complexity to humans.
This new update is something that the main character, melancholy and lonely Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), becomes immediately interested in… Continue reading
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If you loved Gravity and Inception, you’ll love Interstellar.
The time travelling concepts in this movie are easy to grasp if you’re familiar with the sci-fi genre. If you can keep up with Doctor Who, you’ll keep up with this.
It’s set in the future where scientists are aware that crops are failing and the end of the world could be near. NASA is attempting to find another planet so that the human race can continue… Continue reading
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It was a great concept, but it was just so weird! It was simply bizarre.
Scarlet Johansson plays the protagonist, Lucy, who is kidnapped and used as a drug mule. The new drug seeps into her system, which enables her to use more and more and more of her brain.
She is able to manipulate everything from pain tolerence to technology. She even pulls some solid Matrix moves.
It would have been a great as a short film… Continue reading
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I do love time travel. It can be matched up to any theme; romance, action, a light-hearted chick-flick, drama, thriller, comedy… It’s so versatile, yet remains so interesting. It is a theme that explores freedom, risk and responsibility.
But be careful! There are many of us who will be happy to point out the inconsistent, nitty-gritty details when making a story based around time travel.
These are just a few movies that are worth a look if you’re into time travel: Continue reading
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This movie is out of this world!
Ha.
I saw Gravity 3D and it was spectacular. The director, Alfonso Cuarón, said movies should be a visual experience – a lot of dialogue isn’t necessary to tell the story – and he certainly did that well.
Claustrophobia, agoraphobia, isolation, suffocation and death. This is terrifying movie, playing on our natural fears. It is a very ‘human’ film – it goes back to basics – which is extremely effective in such an alien environment.
I’m not sure how to describe the epicness of the visuals… It is inviolable. Simply spectacular. The shot of the Northern Lights from outer space, and of the sun emerging from behind Earth… Wow.
Ryan (Sandra Bullock) and Matt (George Clooney) were absolutely incredible. I am a huge fan of George Clooney anyway, who played a chatty and upbeat character. But I was pleasantly surprised with Sandra Bullock! She convincingly played a strong protagonist. Continue reading
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This. Is. Ah-May-Zing…
What a concoction! An action sci-fi film with epic fight scenes, storyline, characters and sets.
Elysium (a term from Greek mythology referring to where the blessed dwell after death) is based in the year 2154 where Earth is polluted, diseased and overpopulated by the poor and dying… Continue reading
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…what the hell did I just watch..?
So I’m guessing most of you are huge Edgar-Simon-Nick combo fans! I’m sure you were just as psyched when you heard about the final instalment of the Cornetto trilogy being released!
Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End – bring your check list for all of the similarities and shared jokes! It’s like being a part of a huge inside-joke.
Anyway! So I was so excited to see this film! But this was more wacky, more psychedelic, out of left-field, ‘what the hell’ material that I ever thought could be possible for these three guys to invent.
The movie started out awesomely! It was hilarious as they introduced the main characters.
The general storyline was… Continue reading
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I love zombie films! They are probably my favourite kind of horror.
World War Z was an awesome, classic zombie film with big frights. It was not nearly as gruesome or cringe-worthy as many other zombie films like Dawn of the Dead or its sequel, which I think, although mildly disappointing, was an interesting change for the genre.
I won’t give away the unique trait of these zombies, but it is certainly a cool adjustment to the classic zombies you’ve seen in other films.
I can assure you, you will be intrigued with the altered storyline in this film. It’s not quite a cookie cutter zombie movie.
There was no mucking around at the beginning! There was like a five minute intro, then BANG! You’re in a world-wide zombie apocalypse.
There were heaps of moments where… Continue reading
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Soooo creepy! But in an awesome way. I have never seen anything like this film before.
Of course I was weary about Ashton Kutcher being in a serious thriller, but he was fantastic! Like, seriously convincing.
The Butterfly Effect is where a seemingly innocuous act can have a domino effect and create chaos.
It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.
This film plays on this theory where Ashton’s character, Evan, has the ability or curse to travel back to predetermined points in his life. But every time he tries to make it better, something else goes terribly wrong… Continue reading
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When I first watched this film I was disappointed because in my mind I had hyped up the plot line of Gil (Owen Wilson) travelling through different time eras of Paris. The artistic, fashionable, sophisticated and elaborate times of the 1920s, as well as the ceremonious, coming of age times of the 1890s.
The plot is about the Golden Age. That is, longing to live in a time before your own. For example, mine is the early 1960s. Better music and fashion with the huge liberal movement against war and for free will. However, Midnight In Paris attempts to… Continue reading
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The Prestige is an incredible movie with real mystery and thrilling themes, like nothing you have ever seen before. Its dark and haunting aesthetic with the ruthless, deceitful, cut-throat and competitive characters makes an extremely intense film.
It is the story of strong-willed magicians who guard their incredible tricks of illusions with their lives resulting in sacrifices way beyond their expectations as their hunger for dominance of rival magicians runs riot.
Of course, I can’t forget to mention the era that this movie is set in, the late 1800s. I wouldn’t mind living in those times… Only if I was very wealthy of course. Beautiful dresses, old school showmanship, horse and carts and the thrill of newly discovered electricity.
With the complexity of Nolan’s Inception, the grungy look of The Dark Knight, but with a hint of total tragedy, this is just another of Christopher’s incredible creations… Continue reading
NZ Film Freak 