In Suicide Squad, Margot Robbie managed to stand out with her rendition of Harley Quinn. Therefore it isn’t surprising that DC decided to give the character her own film. Because despite the title, which refers to a group of female superheroes who fight crime (and also appear in the film), the focus is primarily on her. Does that result in an enjoyable film? Continue reading
“Never say never”. That was the saying that came to mind immediately after seeing Uncut Gems. A few years ago, after seeing Pixels, I took the decision not to see a single film with Adam Sandler. His comedies are unfortunately bad and I didn’t want to expose myself to those horrors anymore. However, when I heard that he was playing the lead role in a new film by the Safdie brothers, I had to put my decision aside. Their film Good Time was one of those titles which grabbed the viewer and never let go. It showed how good Robert Pattinson is as an actor. When the brothers wrote Uncut Gems, they had Sandler in mind for the lead role. Continue reading
I have always had a weakness for Alfred Hitchcock’s films. A director who was able to place ordinary people in special situations and defined what suspense is. It is a feeling that I also got while watching Parasite. The latest film from director Bong Joon-Ho (who previously made Okja, Snowpiercer, Mother, Memories of Murder and The Host, who just like Hitchcock, is a master at making films and offers the viewer a wonderfully unpredictable film in which the tension is constantly increased until it is almost unbearable. Continue reading
Most will know James May from the older seasons of Top Gear and their new Amazon version, The Grand Tour. Nevertheless, “Captain Slow” has also presented other programs over the years, one of my personal favorites being James May’s Toy Stories, in which he made huge versions of childhood toys, such as a real Lego home. May is always the most serious of the three at The Grand Tour and comes across as someone with a lot of knowledge. He made this new 6-part series for Amazon in which he travels through Japan with his film crew. It is a country he has visited many times, but here he saw places and did things that were new to him. Continue reading
The perspective that we have has a huge impact on how we see the world. This can be based on ideas, but also on a physical level. As a child I was always curious what the top of a car looked like (that turned out to be a disappointment when I was older), but filmmakers also use perspective to present the world differently. In E.T. Steven Spielberg often placed the camera at the level of the children, so that you were experiencing it from their perspective. But also Honey, I Shurnk the Kids or a Marvel film like Ant-Man show how different your world is when you experience everything when you are just as big as an insect. The perspective in I Lost My Body can rightly be called unique, because there are few films that show you what you experience as a hand without a body. Continue reading
As someone who grew up in the 80s, I always have a nostalgic feeling about my childhood (like probably everyone has). The Netflix series The Toys That Made Us therefore was something I loved, because the subject was toys from that era. It is a fun series to watch because of it’s quick and often funny editing. When it was announced that The Movies That Made Us would be released, I was very curious if this concept could be translated to films. The first four episodes are about four extremely successful films: Dirty Dancing, Home Alone, Ghostbusters and Die Hard. Continue reading
A new Scorcese film creates high expectations and The Irishman is no exception. This director is a walking film encyclopedia and has made several classic movies. Add to that the fact that he again cooperates with Robert de Niro and Joe Pesci (with whom he made Goodfellas and Casino) and also Al Pacino, which makes this a title that you want to watch as quickly as you can. After a very short time at the cinema The Irishman is now available on Netflix. Can Scorcese deliver another classic? Continue reading
The Terminator franchise has built a strong foundation with its first two films, which are considered classics. However, it is a shame that there were no films after that which managed to reach the same level. Although I did enjoy Genisys, but not everyone had the same opinion. With Dark Fate, Linda Hamilton returns to this series and the question is to what extent that adds something. Is Dark Fate a return to form? Continue reading
“Less than 10% of poker players are women.” This fact flashes onscreen during the teaser trailer for the upcoming documentary, Poker Queens, which is slated for release in November 2019 via Amazon Prime. The trailer goes on to explain how the biggest poker tournament in the world —the World Series of Poker (WSOP) —has never had a female champion, and how this might soon change. Continue reading
The amount of data that we create as humanity is enormous. To put that in perspective: the amount of data we have created over the past two years is more than all the data that we have made in the entire history of humanity. And with such an overload of data, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get attention for a certain topic. When something is in the news, the period in which that subject is forgotten seems to be getting shorter and shorter. When the Pentagon Papers were published in the early 1970s, their impact was great and they kept the public busy for a long time. And although the impact of the Panama Papers in 2015 was there, with a number of senior officials in various countries resigning, it is not easy to conclude that there has been a fundamental change in regulations to make tax havens disappear. Director Steven Soderbergh seems to have the same feeling and tries to draw attention to this subject again with The Laundromat. Continue reading