Jenny Slate

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience is an unabashed joy

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 27th May 2019

    The Lonely Island brings out the worst in me. I've loved their music and videos since their pre-mainstream days, so therefore if something new comes out I'm right there pushing it on my timeline and telling all my friends, proving my vastly superior knowledge of how it ties into their back catalogue, extolling the brilliance of the references and riffs. But more insufferable than that, if my friends get there first I find myself attempting to double their enthusiasm to prove it is I who knows the most - laughing twice as hard, posting twice as much, both in order to drown out their pathetic voices. Nobody can know more than me about The Lonely Island. Nobody can appreciate them more. We cannot share in this together. It's the sort of obsessive behaviour that can only end in a murder-suicide.

  • Review: Venom is a toothless throwback to the worst era of superhero movies

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 3rd October 2018

    Let’s get something clear: it’s not grey-faced film snobbery, it’s not misunderstanding why a villainous antihero deserves his own movie, it’s not bad memories of Topher Grace, and it has nothing to do with Lady Gaga fans trying to help A Star Is Born top the box office chart. The reason why critics have felt their shitey sense tingling in advance of Venom’s release is because it has always looked terrible. The trailers showcased a comic-book movie from a bygone decade in which superpowers were fuelled by cheesey dialogue, bad CGI and maddening plot holes. We’ve all been standing downwind of this turd for quite some time, so low expectations are entirely justified. Ok, maybe it’s a little bit because of Topher Grace.

  • Despicable Me 3

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 3rd July 2017

    Let's just re-establish The Boss Baby Clause from earlier this year: Despicable Me 3 is a kids movie, and it was watched in the company of a kid, and it was enjoyed by said kid, thus to me, it was a successful movie. Writing criticism of movies patently not made for you is a fool's errand, but we're all professionals here, so let's try and engage the critical faculties and fire up a review for old time's sake. Despicable Me 3 is... fine? I guess? Let's say yes.

  • Zootropolis

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 1st April 2016

    How many movies make up a renaissance? Without getting too hung up on terminology, I'm interested how we categorise, rank and file nascent movies - the age of this, the era of that etc. When does a hot streak cool into something of more substance? I only ask because Zootropolis is the latest in an increasingly long line of movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios that can rightfully call itself a classic. If you start with 2010's Tangled (and discount the still rather delightful 2011 Winnie The Pooh kiddy pic), that streak also includes Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen and Big Hero 6, all movies with iconic characters, impressively progressive agendas, humour and heart. Shouldn't we be talking about this decade's body of Disney in more grandiose terms? Zootropolis represents the apex of Disney's sparkling Digital Age; a blissfully beautiful, adventurous and charismatic movie that's typical of the studio of late.

  • Obvious Child

    Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 29th August 2014

    If you are a hipster, then you are welcome here. This website is a broad church and no one is turned away. But know this: I do not understand you. Be you Williamsburg or Shoreditch, you are an alien to me, as are all your kind. Aren't your trousers uncomfortable? Aren't jam jars massively difficult to drink out of? Do you have to eat loads of jam just to get the jars? And yet you are a significant enough cultural phenomenon that you bear documentation through film and television, which is more than you can say for me.