entertainment
The very best in geek and comic entertainment.
Film review: Destroyer
Karyn Kusama’s moody Los Angeles cop thriller, Destroyer, is destined to be remembered as the film in which one of Hollywood’s most famously glamorous and elegant superstars, Nicole Kidman, demonstrated just how unglamorous and inelegant she could be. Kidman plays LAPD detective Erin Bell, a name which makes her sound like a Disney character, when she is actually the exact opposite. A gaunt, alcoholic wreck who tends to sleep either in a bar or in her car, Erin has papery, liver-spotted skin; cracked lips; bags over as well as under her eyes; and a mop of greying hair that would probably digest any comb that went near it. Whenever she trudges towards her colleagues, they swear under their breath and back away, mainly because she has become such an embarrassing liability, but partly, you assume, because of the stench that clings to her black leather jacket.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
Film review: Vice
Adam McKay made his name by directing Anchorman, Step Brothers, and other comedies in which Will Ferrell swears loudly and damages things, but he has since become one of the US’s most serious film-makers. Not serious in the sense of being ponderous or obscure, I hasten to add, but serious in his engagement with complex current affairs. The big change came with 2015’s The Big Short, an Oscar-winning docudrama which attempted to explain the machinations behind the 2007-2008 financial crisis, while attempting to get some laughs. McKay’s follow-up is Vice, a film which asks how US politics reached today’s surreal state. Its two-word answer: Dick Cheney.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks
Don't Worry Darling - A Movie Review
Something about this world doesn’t feel weird to you? Don’t Worry Darling is a 2022 film. A housewife is living happily with her husband in a 1950s Utopian setting. Experiencing strange occurrences, Alice learns that this community may not be the peaceful living quarters as it turns out.
By Marielle Sabbag3 years ago in Geeks
Berlin Film Festival review: The Souvenir
Honor Swinton Byrne has set herself a high standard with her first film; delivering unforgettability in her debut, Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir. But 21-year-old Swinton Byrne (yes, she’s the daughter of Tilda Swinton) did not spend years working up to the moment; she hasn’t trained as an actress.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
The Aftermath: ‘A mildly engaging trifle’
The characters in The Aftermath face intriguing dilemmas. Four months after the end of World War Two, Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) arrives in Hamburg to join her husband, Lewis (Jason Clarke), a British military officer. How will they deal with the Germans, the vanquished enemy whose bombing of London killed their young son? Will they repair their marriage, now as chilly as the snowy landscape in which her train arrives? Will she fall into bed with the handsome German widower, Stefan Lubert (Alexander Skarsgård), an architect whose grand house the British have requisitioned for the Morgans’ use?
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
The Empress: A Hidden Netflix Gem
It was late last night while in bed scrolling through my Netflix account that I stumbled across the period drama that is The Empress. After watching a snippet and with a 97% match, I went ahead and started watching and within minutes I was hooked. The Empress follows the story of Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898) played by Devrim Lingnau. The synopsis is as follows:
By Rosie J. Sargent3 years ago in Geeks
Film review: Booksmart
Booksmart is actress Olivia Wilde’s first film as director, and it’s no surprise that she gets vibrant performances from her cast. Plenty of actors-turned-film-makers do that. Unlike most of them, she does a lot more, breathing hilarious new life into two tired genres. A female buddy film in the guise of a high-school partying movie, Booksmart is endlessly funny and outrageous, yet always grounded by its realistic central relationship.
By Mao Jiao Li3 years ago in Geeks
Film review: Downton Abbey
If you’re going to elevate the social world of Downton Abbey’s aristocratic Crawley family, you really have nowhere to go but up to the king and queen. As this cheerful movie picks up from the hugely popular television series, King George V and Queen Mary visit Downton. It is 1927, soon after the show’s story ended. There is no mention of the royal guests’ then-baby granddaughter, who would grow up to be Elizabeth II.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners | Love, Death, and Cyberpunk
I’m usually the last to admit that I’m picky when it comes to anime, but here I am, ready to confess my anime sins. Compared to where the industry was some ten years ago, Japanese animation has become a worldwide mainstream topic for people from all walks of life. Back in the day, anime felt more niche, like a dirty secret that you had to keep hidden otherwise you’d be bullied for it at school. Many more shows then flew under the radar and coming across good ones felt like you had uncovered a hidden gem.
By Amanda Starks3 years ago in Geeks
Can beauty pageants ever be empowering?
eauty pageants have long been a contested part of our culture: some see them as a hangover from a far more patriarchal era, while others defend them for helping women of all ages to feel more confident and to know their self-worth. It’s a debate raised in new film, Misbehaviour.
By Many A-Sun3 years ago in Geeks
How Pretty Woman erased sex from its story
A middle-aged businessman pays a much-younger prostitute to be his live-in lover for a week. It’s a sordid premise for a feel-good romantic comedy, but that didn’t stop Pretty Woman being one of the biggest hits of 1990. And now, 30 years later, the film is still so cherished that a musical adaptation opened in London’s West End, after a successful run on Broadway (now closed due to the Coronavirus crisis). How did the film’s director, Garry Marshall, get away with it? How did he make such a tasteless exploitation fantasy seem almost wholesome? Well, casting a star with the incandescent beauty and charm of Julia Roberts was undoubtedly a factor. But another factor was casting a co-star, Richard Gere, who behaved as if that beauty and charm meant nothing to him.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
Why the apocalypse is being reimagined as a beautiful
The Last of Us may have been a zombie horror survival game, about a duo traversing a post-apocalyptic US overrun with cannibalistic creatures, but its most memorable moments weren’t daring escapes from zombie hordes, nor explosive shoot-outs with hostile human survivors. Instead, the greatest draw of the 2013 best-seller – lauded as one of the greatest video games of all time – was its quiet story beats, and one quiet story beat in particular.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
