We saw Ritchie’s The Gentlemen on opening day (January 1st). We went into this: Being Guy Ritchie fans, and Wanting something clever, funny, and with just right right amount of action. We weren’t disappointed. Our first hint of being in for something special was the ticket attendant who asked in very sombre tones if we knew this was an R-rated movie. We thought she was being witty but after seeing the movie I think she was doing more sensitive audience-goers a solid. It’s clear Ritchie needed a palate cleanser after Disney’s Aladdin – a fun enough movie but without enough room for him to really swing a sword. I prefer Ritchie doing what he does best – clever, fast movies that push at least one boundary each time (my favourites are King Arthur and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., now joined Read More …

You might remember me gushing about Red Sister. It’s time for me to show you the path to another great grimdark tale: Nevernight, by Jay Kristoff. While Nevernight’s hero is a young woman, that’s where basic framing between the two tales ends. Nevernight’s Mia Corvere hunts murderers: her mission is to avenge the death of her parents. While this seems at first blush a fairly typical narrative arc, what makes Mia’s journey a little different is her dedication. She’s not content to slip a knife in someone’s ribs: Mia joins the Red Church, to follow our Lady of Blessed Murder. It’d be easy for this tale to degrade into a charnel house of body parts at this point, but Kristoff never takes his eyes off the prize. Mia’s not a Terminator-style killer; she didn’t chose this life, but was rather Read More …

Rae and I ventured into the frozen wilds of Brooklyn last night to see Long Shot. We battled with a suburb-wide power outage, feral hipsters, and restaurants without electricity (…I swear I saw a woman eating her own baby) to see it. But the Penthouse Cinema got electricity back on, and … man, was it worth the hardship. As a sometime Rogen and long-time Theron fan, they almost had me at hello. The movie opens with enough swearing to make an admiral blush, and we meet half our unlikely duo: Rogen’s Fled Flarsky. Flarsky’s a journalist, recently quit-slash-fired by Big Media, and re-introduced to his childhood crush at his get-over-it post-drinks session with long time best friend Lance (played by O’Shea Jackson Jr.). The crush? None other than the other half of this movie’s power couple, Theron’s Charlotte Field. Tired Read More …

We watched Anon last night. The trailer makes this look like a reasonable cyberpunk action flick – does it deliver? No. Despite reasonable star power with Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried, and a good start, what follows is a sagging, poorly-paced tale marginally redeemed by an on-point ending. Anon features Owen’s character Sal, a kind of future police officer with the easiest job in the world, since everyone’s got cybereyes that record their every waking moment. After uncovering a soft underbelly of criminals who can edit these memories from the public record, we’re treated to about 45 minutes of old white men sitting in sterile-looking rooms, all while they watch snips of the world through other people’s eyes. There’s quite a lot of naked women on display, sadly not balanced by men – which we should probably be thankful for, Read More …

When I sat down to read Speak, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Familiar with Paddock’s work by way of Postcards from Gliese, I suspected it’d sucker-punch me right in the feels. I wasn’t disappointed. I think we should start with what this book is like, or maybe who might have written it. It reads like a Gaiman novel – the way the prose rolls of the page feels very much like The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It’s urban fantasy, but not with vampires (sparkling or otherwise): Speak is about people you might know, in a town like that small one you vacationed at last year, doing marvelous things. The story starts with Ellen in the firm grip of her ordinary life. She’s got a father who makes military school instructors look like Barney. Her mother Read More …