Film Guide

The red band trailer for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D, starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton.

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There’s not much I enjoy more than a good zombie flick, and there’s not many zombies films better than Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza’s original Spanish zombie horror REC. What made REC all the more surprising was that it was also a found footage piece, and lets be honest, the number of good found footage films can be counted on a few fingers. In their follow up, REC2 Balaguero and Plaza made a decent effort, but essentially just recycled what they had already done.

Now we come to the third in what is a 4 part series, REC Genesis, this time helmed solely by Balaguero and Paco Plaza. Keeping in them with the previous two films, REC Genesis (which incidentally happens concurrently with the first film in the series are far as timeline goes) begins with a 20 minute intro comprised of found footage, but then goes cinematic for the remainder. Paco also dispenses with the tight claustrophobic feel of the first two for more of a chaotic zombie scarefest, and adds a fair bit of much needed humour, injecting a bit of life into what could have become a stale series.

With REC Genesis, Paco takes us to an event that should be one of the happiest, and turns it on it’s head, creating the mother of all nightmares.

Koldo and Clara are about to get married, it’s their wedding day and we follow them to the church, through their vows and onto the reception. It’s the happiest day of their lives and these two high society families part up at a huge Spanish mansion, unaware that one of their uncles has been infected and all hell is about to let loose.  Read the rest of this entry »

After watching their respective partners die, a cop and a hitman form an alliance in order to bring down their common enemy. Read the rest of this entry »

Two girls, two guys, one condom, and apparently life happens. This uninspiring comedy tries to tell us all about life, the hardships of being a party girl when you have a child and the responsibilities of growing up. And it wants to do all this wrapped up in a nice rom-com style, but shoots wildly from the hip, without loading the gun and misses on just about everything.

The laughs – I’m sure I remember one or two – are few and far between, and the story is driven along by a writer who obviously has never had life happen to them.

It aims to be a raunchy girls can do anything film along the lines of a Judd Apatow comedy by never raises itself past the levels of a failed TV sit-com.  Read the rest of this entry »

Rampart is a difficult film to review. As an R-rated cop drama with Woody Harrelson in the lead, backed up by some awesome names, you kind of expect a certain type of film, something akin to Training Day, the darker side of Hollywood to be sure, but still having that little bit of Hollywoodness to help you swallow the pill.

Rampart however is a bitter little pill, and you have to swallow the whole bottle to get through it. It’s not very pleasant but it is mesmerising, if somewhat schizophrenic at times.

The film follows Harrelson’s character, Officer Dave Brown. Brown comes from a line of corrupt cops, working in one of LA’s most corrupt police districts. The corruption has been eating away at him for years, and he’s become a pill popping, alcohol dependent, racist sex addict. He lives with his two daughters and two ex-wifes (who happen to be sisters) and in one scene he propositions both, one directly after the other, before heading out to his usual seedy bar to pick up a woman.  Read the rest of this entry »

I guess I’m not the only one who is still fascinated by the story of the Titanic, and with the 100th Anniversary there has been a lot of new stuff being released. I figured that Titanic: 100 Years In 3D would be one of the better documentaries available, purely because I was sure that the History Channel wasn’t about to send 3D cameras down to the Titanic and shoot the same old images that we’ve seen a thousand times.

Unfortunately I was wrong on that point. Maybe it was logistically impossible to do anything else, but the footage was nothing spectacular, and certainly nothing I hadn’t seen before. This was disappointing.

Outside of the visuals, it’s a run-of-the-mill documentary, with interviews, voice overs from eye witness accounts and such like. All interesting in there own right, but if you’ve already seen and read about the Titanic, there’s nothing new here.

So what’s the point of releasing the DVD?  Read the rest of this entry »

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A homicide investigator digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random victims. Read the rest of this entry »