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Review: Elizabeth Harvest brings a touch of class to the male wank fantasy

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 16th July 2019

A few months ago I forced myself to watch Eli Roth's Knock Knock. It was a truly pathetic faux-apologetic excuse to show two young actresses naked, under the pretence it was all okay because they were getting revenge on shitty men. That's not to say I'm above looking at pointless nudity - I am a shitty man myself - but it has made me wary of how films are presented and my own sense of dismay when something turns out to be as grubby as you'd hoped it wouldn't be, even if a part of you secretly hoped it would be.

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Review: I Am Mother wears its influences on whatever robots have instead of sleeves

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 1st July 2019

Once again I find myself pondering the meaning of life in a Greggs. I like the way the servers don't indulge in the folly that producing coffee is a lengthy, complex task. They turn around, press a button, and 15-20 seconds later a cup is plonked on the counter. That's not to badmouth the baristas of other chains - I'm sure there's a skill to what they do - but the process is needlessly prolonged with steam bursts and putting bendy tubes in milk cartons. The staff of Greggs understand the purpose of my visit and their role in it as facilitators of quick hot brown slop. To extrapolate that to its only logical conclusion, we can ascertain that they value above all the one thing that binds human existence and has led to this exact moment we are all experiencing in unison: time. It's 8am and already it has been a big day.

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Review: Murder Mystery commits the crime of not being very mysterious

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 25th June 2019

Shhh the kids are asleep. It's mummy and daddy time now, a chance to do all the things you can't do during the day. Let's make a cup of tea and put on a film. Two hours gone and now it's bedtime. The film was fine. Not good, not bad. Just fine, but more importantly we survived today. Lamp off. Start again tomorrow. One day closer to death. Everything is just fine, and it's not for me to judge that your life has become a static series of achievement-void days spent clockwatching and sometimes not even seeing the sun.

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Review: Rim of the World walks a fine line between stupid and clever

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 18th June 2019

McG's (ugh) Netflix Original (UGH) Rim of the World (UGHHHH) is a sexist, misogynistic, inexplicably racist low-hanging-fruit-picking embarrassment that by rights should be shot into the sun and every trace of its existence burnt to ashes, and the people responsible sterilised so they don't accidentally send their kids to Hollywood film school and make another one like it. That would be if the sexism, misogynism and racism wasn't being delivered by 13-year-old children. Which I'm afraid in the arena of bad taste qualifies this for some sort of filmic equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

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Review: Wine Country is a waste of a great ensemble cast

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 17th June 2019

One thing that fascinates me about film-making is not the how of how movies are made, but the when. We see stars grow in real time these days and very often, once their careers have developed enough, they become producers - meaning the shows and films we watch follow their whims. That explains why we get a glut of movies about having babies, followed by a wave of thirties singleton rom-coms, and these subjects mould the wider zeitgeist. And now we're entering what should be the most interesting phase, where all your favourite stars are burnt out and holding grudges: the mid-life crisis. Fight! Fight! Fight!

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Review: Always Be My Maybe is almost definitely an okay film

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 11th June 2019

I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Keanu Reeves' turn in Always Be My Maybe is as funny as you'd hoped, not just living up to his much-memed slow motion entrance in the trailer, but hanging around for a few more scenes and becoming part of the plot like he's some sort of jobbing actor or something. The bad news is most of everything else.

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Review: See You Yesterday is a deft causality caper with a message

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 7th June 2019

Confession: once at an old job I accidentally sent a test email campaign to a contact list of 40,000 people, with the subject 'Test XXX' and body content consisting of a single centrally aligned picture of a cartoon dog. The point I'm illustrating is that some mistakes can't be undone, leaving you with no choice but to live with the consequences. But hang on, you ask, why not simply travel back in time to stop yourself clicking 'Send' in the first place? Yeah sure I could take the easy route, but that small tinkering could change the man I am today. And besides, I've just seen See You Yesterday, which makes a strong case for leaving the past well alone.

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Review: The Perfection dares to be shocking but doesn't have the chops

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 4th June 2019

Part of the trouble with being extremely online is you see the entire gamut of opinions all at the same time. Take poor Godzilla for example - as soon as the embargo lifted on King of the Monsters every star rating possible flooded my timeline, which did nothing to help decide whether to see it or not. But for better or worse at least those reviewers arrived at an opinion about the big G's latest romp. Recent Netflix release The Perfection left me so unsure I committed the cardinal sin of reading other site's reviews before sitting down to write my own, so I take a lot of solace that nobody seemed to know what to make of it, because I'll be fucked if I do.

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Review: The Wandering Earth seeks to save the planet but rings hollow

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 31st May 2019

Think of the most outlandish thing you can think of. Now imagine it bigger. No, bigger than that. Think the Wright Brothers diving into the Trench Run. Bigger. Think Nikola Tesla wielding Mjolnir in a duel with Edison. Bigger! Elon Musk smoking weed on Mars in a mech. Bigger still, dammit! Ok, now take whatever mental image you've arrived at and multiply it by ten, then run into a wall to give yourself a concussion. Congratulations you are now somewhere close to the wild, inspirational, childish ambition of The Wandering Earth.

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Review: Unicorn Store sparkles but doesn't shine or, er, something

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 23rd April 2019

Hey everyone, it's the new movie starring Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson! You know, the one where she has to make a bunch of defining choices regarding her responsibilities in a fantasy setting! While making quips! Actually Unicorn Store was completed a few years ago but has only just been released by Netflix, in what is presumably a Captain America-style tactical decision to capitalise on Brie Larson's new-found Marvel fame. But don't read too much into this apparent dumping on a streaming service because while it's not exactly a Vision to behold and a bit low-key (Loki) on the life-affirming front, it's not a Hulking great mess either! Thanos!

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