Author: Joel Meares
Sunshine (2007)
Danny Boyle could make watching paint dry compelling. From the frenzy of Trainspotting to the starkly spare wide shots of a barren London in 28 Days Later, Boyle has shown repeatedly his skill as a...
Movie Review posted on 20th July 2007
Disturbia
Disturbia is a critically vulnerable film at the outset. Its task is an audacious one: "YouTubing" Hitchcock. Who isn't disturbed by the prospect of D.J. Caruso (Taking Lives!) helming a Rear Window rip-off for the...
Movie Review posted on 13th April 2007
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
English students of the world rejoice - another reason not to read Jane Austen. Joe Wright's latest incarnation of Austen's classic Pride & Prejudice is a mostly blissful time-traveling bus tour through a giggly and...
Movie Review posted on 5th April 2007
Wild Hogs
Prior to my screening of Wild Hogs, the theatre played an advertisement in which two identical cars "sumo fight" on an elevated circular stage. Each car is distinguished by its performance. One charges forth, its...
Movie Review posted on 22nd March 2007
Doa: Dead Or Alive
Dead or Alive could be the most literal cinematic interpretation of a computer game ever made. In the film, three young women fight in a combat tournament called DOA: Dead or Alive, held on a...
Movie Review posted on 5th February 2007
Epic Movie
The stigma of "I've seen it all before" pervades Epic Movie in unexpected ways. Writers/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer's previous credits, Scary Movie (as two of six writers) and Date Movie, tell you what...
Movie Review posted on 26th January 2007
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Watching What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? fills one with a sense of nostalgia for a time they may never have known but can always relive. In 1962, Baby Jane's year of birth, the cinema...
Movie Review posted on 15th January 2007
Shut Up & Sing
A documentarian is frequently at the mercy of his or her subject. A project may seem exciting stuff, only to reveal itself a yawn upon further investigation. Luckily, for filmmakers Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck,...
Movie Review posted on 31st December 2006
The Omen (1976)
The Omen is not as serious a movie as it appears. Coming to the modern audience as the infant in a Holy trinity of satanic, apocalyptic horror films, including The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby, The...
Movie Review posted on 21st November 2006
Clerks II
Kevin Smith is a deceptively good filmmaker. Often criticized for a filmic paralysis that has seen his style advance very little from the amateurish and unpolished production of the original Clerks, he has maintained a...
Movie Review posted on 21st July 2006
Little Man (2006)
Not even White Chicks can prepare you for the badness brought on by Little Man. This "Li'l Bubba's House" is my early Razzie favorite and definitely the worst theatrical release so far this year. Its...
Movie Review posted on 17th July 2006
The Omen (2006)
My favorite character in John Moore's remake of The Omen is the Pope. I am not entirely sure which Pope it is, and it is more of a cameo role really, but every time the...
Movie Review posted on 12th July 2006
Basic Instinct 2
Paul Verhoeven, director of the original Basic Instinct, must be great in bed. The women in his films attest to this assumption. They don't just make love - they soar athletically about bedrooms and swimming...
Movie Review posted on 12th July 2006
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
It has become critical cliché to say that a gleefully executed summer blockbuster made one feel like a kid again, but this was my precise response to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. With...
Movie Review posted on 10th July 2006
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift plays like the archetypal Western. A newcomer arrives in town, upsets the locals, plays with hearts, and rides around a lot before a final "this town ain't big...
Movie Review posted on 21st June 2006
Basic Instinct 2
Paul Verhoeven, director of the original Basic Instinct, must be great in bed. The women in his films attest to this assumption. They don't just make love - they soar athletically about bedrooms and swimming...
Movie Review posted on 31st March 2006
24: Season Four
Before launching with any credibility into my review of 24, I must confess in the church of guilty little pleasures my absolute obsession with the program and the pursuits of its hero, the honorable Mr....
Movie Review posted on 16th March 2006
Desperate Housewives: Season One
It is telling that two of the principle cast-members of Desperate Housewives - Doug Savant and Marcia Cross - were residents of Melrose Place before moving to the now famous home of housewives desperate, Wisteria...
Movie Review posted on 2nd March 2006
Underworld: Evolution
If current cinema is to be believed, everywhere we humans are not looking, vampires, werewolves, advanced machines, and other nightcrawlers are living in alternative societies. Underworld brought such a society to the fore, shining a...
Movie Review posted on 20th January 2006
Wolf Creek
After first seeing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I had said to myself, "Only in America..." Only in America could cannibal tailors hide in houses waiting for rations to drive by in cars. Only in America...
Movie Review posted on 21st December 2005
Pride & Prejudice
English students of the world rejoice - another reason not to read Jane Austen. Joe Wright's latest incarnation of Austen's classic Pride & Prejudice is a mostly blissful time-traveling bus tour through a giggly and...
Movie Review posted on 21st December 2005
Two Hands
Writer/director Gregor Jordan's Two Hands is a brilliant little film; what we Aussies might call a "ripper." Preceding the more sophisticated Aussie thriller Chopper by just a year, it announced the beginning of the Australian...
Movie Review posted on 15th December 2005
Lost: Season One
Agatha Christie wrote something in excess of 80 novels. Christie was a practiced and a brilliant mystery taleteller, a commercial writer who exploited her full and total grasp of the mystery genre to massive popular...
Movie Review posted on 25th November 2005
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Watching What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? fills one with a sense of nostalgia for a time they may never have known but can always relive. In 1962, Baby Jane's year of birth, the cinema...
Movie Review posted on 18th November 2005
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Folkestone bore witness to a mesmerising performance from Joan As Police Woman in celebration of a distinguished, if under appreciated, solo career.
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