Matt Looker

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: Jackass Forever is a healing balm for our bee-stung ballsack world

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 3rd February 2022

    You may have noticed that film reviews, or indeed content of any kind, has been few and far between on the ridiculous pages of this site recently, but every now and then a film comes along that is so powerful, so commanding of the cultural zeitgeist, that it just simply can’t be ignored. This is that film. Jackass Forever is a movie that provides the relief we so desperately need following two years of global hardship. It’s a solution for the general societal malaise from which we’re all suffering. It might even hold the cure for the coronavirus itself. And all it took was a lot of dicks and balls getting hit, bitten, stung and punched.

  • Review: Wonder Woman 1984 is here to remind you about idiot nonsense cinema

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 30th December 2020

    Coming right in the final throes of a horribly unheroic year, the long-awaited sequel of the best reviewed film of the DCEU - and the only true superhero movie to be released in 2020 - should be a slam dunk. Tenet aside, the year has been utterly devoid of blockbuster spectacle and we haven’t been able to measure our cinematic expectations in major franchise instalments like we normally would, resorting instead to counting Netflix hits and misses. So, whether it’s being watched at an IMAX or on an iPad, Wonder Woman 1984 really couldn’t have hoped for a more receptive audience. Sadly, any assumptions that this would guarantee a great movie experience is purely wishful thinking.

  • Face The Music: The Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey soundtrack is most outstanding

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker | 4th September 2020

    With Bill & Ted Face The Music coming to a cinema/streaming platform/post-Covid quarantine bunker near you soon, it's a good time to revisit the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey soundtrack - surely the most absurd collection of musical ditties ever assembled for a film.

  • Review: Tenet once again shows that Christopher Nolan is ahead of his time

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 31st August 2020

    In case anyone still hasn’t realised it yet, Christopher Nolan loves time. He loves it soooo much. He wants to marry time and have sweet little pocket-watch babies. He wants to go to prison so that he can ’do’ time. Because if he’s not telling an entire film in reverse chronological order like in Memento, or revealing multiple flashbacks within flashbacks like in The Prestige, he’s creating a story in which three separate narratives that run over distinctly different time periods all unfold simultaneously, like in Inception and Dunkirk. Time is Christopher Nolan’s life, and he is having the best of it. Which is why Tenet can easily be seen as the most Christopher Nolan film that Christopher Nolan has made so far - it brings this particular favourite theme of his into sharp focus. Frankly, It’s about time.

  • Review: The Invisible Man offers dark, intense thrills, sight unseen

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 4th March 2020

    If you stop to think about it for a minute, the very idea of an invisible person raises some questions and almost all of them are: what happens when they eat or drink or bleed or, yes, shit? At what point does something external to the person start or stop being ’also invisible’? There are a couple of different cinematic approaches to the science: Memoirs Of An Invisible Man takes a cue from H. G. Wells’ original novel and shows food filling a suddenly materialised stomach before being vomited back up again, while Hollow Man just er... never really mentions it. In a similar vein to that creepy, invisible stalker movie, this new film ignores the biological questions altogether because the title character’s vanishing act is achieved with a special suit made of... optics? Cameras? It looks like it probably works a bit like the invisible car in Die Another Day. So that’s just really clear. Good, simple logic. No questions, your honour.

  • Review: Birds Of Prey is the fantabulous desperation of one Harley Quinn

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 17th February 2020

    There’s no denying that the Joker is a truly iconic figure. Whether it’s Joaquin Phoenix’s fragile psychopath, Heath Ledger’s cruel anarchist or Cesar Romero’s painted moustache, the character of the Joker is an indelible legend of pop culture. But you wouldn’t want to hang out with him, would you? Imagine all the whoopee cushions and hand buzzers and all that endless itching powder. He’s just a terrible try-hard, isn’t he? So it’s probably apt that this film, which is primarily focused on his sudden absence from Harley Quinn’s life, tries to fill his void by being just as eager to entertain. It’s packed with colourful chaos, wacky narrative devices and fun, so much fun. But just like the Joker’s constant giggling, it also feels a little bit forced. Why so weary-ous, Harley Quinn?

  • Interview: Joss Whedon talks Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Commentary! - The Musical

    TV Feature | Matt Looker | 20th January 2020

    Congratulations to everyone who read that thing I wrote last year about the brilliant, amazing burst of fruit flavour that is Commentary! The Musical - a musical commentary recorded for Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Well done to all of you who went on to not only watch the main feature, but also sought out the commentary, listened to all the songs and dialogue whilst reading the lyrics online, just as I suggested. Seeing it through makes each of you a huge fucking nerd (you’ll no doubt get that reference now). Achievement unlocked. Here’s me interviewing Joss Whedon about the whole thing.

  • Review: Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is good, but conflicted

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 19th December 2019

    There’s no denying that Star Wars: The Last Jedi created a massive disturbance in the force, as if a million voices suddenly cried out in entitled outrage and were suddenly empowered to act like total asshats on Twitter. All Rian Johnson really did was evolve his film beyond the tropes, cliches and traditions that have become the hallmarks of every episode in the saga until that point. Bury the past - or literally burn it down - and move on. Forget the old and make way for the new, otherwise how can there be any progress? After all, "we are," muses Yoda, "what they grow beyond". But if that proved a divisive move, then what JJ Abrams does with this final instalment is equally controversial: ignore that new approach entirely and return to the safe familiarity of the old template. There’s important plot development, of course, but it is housed within a return to the brand adherence and fan service that The Force Awakens originally offered. Skywalker rises, but Episode 9 of 9 simply stays on target.

  • Review: Knives Out is a modern-age murder mystery that absolutely kills it

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 4th December 2019

    Traditional murder mysteries must be the hardest stories to write, because audiences are always second-guessing everything, desperate to work out the twist before the genius detective. Writers have to seed important details among their pool of suspects without giving the game away, whilst also offering red herrings that have to feel like they could still be relevant. Meanwhile their audience is constantly reading too much into everything, determined not to be outsmarted. So a film like this one is already at make-or-break point for each viewer. If they don’t guess the killer and the motive, and the reveal still makes sense, then they can be satisfied with the thrill of being outplayed. But if they solve the mystery before the end, it’s "Nah, that’s rubbish, mate. I saw it coming a mile off". And audiences are actively rooting for the latter. They’re the ones with the knives out.

  • Review: Le Mans '66 is great Oscar fuel. It has real drive. It's wheelie- ok I'll stop

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 15th November 2019

    I’ve come to realise recently that I don’t like car chases. Sure, some are ok, like when they’re used to actually tell a story, as in, say The Italian Job, or when they involve big stunts, like when a fast and/or furious launches Vin Diesel at a Godzilla or whatever. On the whole though, they just seem like endless pedal-pushing and an ever-increasing number of gear shifts designed, I imagine, to provide lusty material for those that just really get cars. I am not one of these people, so you can forgive me for going into Le Mans ‘66 having previously prepared to pretend that the whole film is just about Bruce Wayne test-driving a new Batmobile.