Fred Melamed

News, Reviews & Features
  • Get On Up

    Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 20th November 2014

    Pop star biopics don't really work, do they? They love to take great, heavy-handed pains to hint at the inspiration behind the subject's most famous work, like a whole film comprising Forrest Gump telling John Lennon how in China the people have no possessions, and no religion too. Get On Up, the story of James Brown, isn't quite as guilty of this as most, and boasts a standout lead performance by Chadwick Boseman, but by Christ, its script is funky, and not in a good way.

  • In A World...

    Movie Review | Ali | 13th September 2013

    Hollywood is patently ridiculous. It just is. There is no element of the filmmaking business that isn't stupid as hell. You have studios spending hundreds of millions of dollars on adaptations of 1930s radio serials. You have actors who talk about artistic integrity while promoting their animated guinea pig movie. You have audiences who actually hand over their hard-earned cash to see Adam Sandler in Grown Ups 2, a film which – if it isn't some elaborate sting engineered in order to separate morons from their money – is just a sick fucking joke.

  • A Serious Man

    Movie Review | Anna | 21st November 2009

    According to the Shr'dinger's Cat paradox, if you put a cat in a sealed box with a vial of poison that has a 50-50 chance of being released and killing the cat (sorry cat lovers), then until the box is unsealed, the cat is neither alive or dead. It exists in both states until the box is unsealed and the cat is observed to be one thing or the other.