So is The Raid: Redemption any good?

You know how various Hollywood and Bollywood studios are constantly touting whatever new movie as an ‘action spectacular’ or some other set of undeserved superlatives? Yeah those folks need to use words because they don’t have the action to back it up. The Raid: Redemption is an Indonesian action movie that opens in India this Friday (11th May) and it is what all those Salman... Read More

So is The Avengers any good?

Crossovers can be tough. The writers have to stay aware of the individual storylines of the characters that cross over so that there is some semblance of continuity between what happens in the character’s usual universe and what happens when the characters come together—usually in a storm of testosterone and dueling personality traits. But that is in the comic books. In the... Read More

So is 21 Jump Street any good?

21 Jump Street—the movie based on the TV show—opens to the strains of an Eminem song. So I guess the writers also decided to cadge a trick from the movie that Marshall Mathers starred in—namely 8 Mile—and name check all the stupid stunts they were going to pull by putting up signposts that highlighted those moments before any reviewer, ticket-buying customer or blogger... Read More

So is Young Adult any good?

Screenwriting gurus, development executives and anybody an aspiring screenwriter has ever pitched their film to will always tell said screenwriter something like this: “It’s called a movie for a reason. Let there be action.” “The first ten pages have to really grab me and hold my attention.” “You need to give us something we can sell.” And other similarly worded doublespeak... Read More

So is Battleship any good?

Kitsch. Neeson. Skarsgård. Decker. And well…Rihanna. That’s pretty good casting to capture a really wide demographic, right? Tim Riggins, Eric Northman and Ra’s Al Ghul doing battle with some badass aliens? And it’s not like that girl who sang that Ella Ella song or that other girl who’s married to that tennis star who’s always losing winnable matches are hard on the... Read More

So is The Sitter any good?

You know which formerly-rotund movie star makes a convincing foul-mouthed slacker with a good heart? Seth Rogen? You know who doesn’t? Jonah Hill. Noah Griffith (Hill), a kid who got kicked out of college, is saddled with the responsibility of babysitting three kids so that his single mother can go on a blind date organized by the aforementioned kids’ parents. The levels of... Read More

So is Tamara Drewe any good?

In Tamara Drewe multiple storylines intertwine, bang up against each other and cause a bit of a mess in an idyllic town in the English countryside. And all of it goes a bit pear-shaped with the arrival of the titular character — a local girl who left for the big city to build some sort of journalistic career for herself. Apparently before the girl left she had a nose that was... Read More