ZanzibarBreeze (Level 11)

2012 is a traditional disaster film. And a traditional disaster film has plenty of spectacle and plenty of explosions and plenty of drama. 2012 has all of the above, but it has them in varying degrees. The first thing viewers will notice is the CG. The overwhelming majority of the ...

I must preface this review by saying that I am of Greek descent, and I’ve experienced much of the everyday life that goes down in this film. In that way, then, I’m biased of a sort, because I don’t really have any compass for how this film explains Greek culture ...

I like Exit Wounds a lot. And I like it because it’s ballsy and it knows what it is. This movie knows that it’s a simple action film. This movie knows that its lone strength is the action. What it is about, essentially, is men firing guns, and then men ...

Changing Lanes is surprising in many respects. One might not expect it to be as heavy a study of human behavior as it turns out to be. This is a film about how people respond to situations and how they interact with each other and who’s good and who’s bad.  ...

I always appreciate a film that tries to innovate and be original. If the film works out and ends up being legitimately good, the feeling is all the better, but if the film fails, you can say that at least they were trying something; at least they weren’t apathetic, at ...

Collateral was a genuine surprise for me. The man responsible for this terrific film is Michael Mann, also responsible for the almost perfect Heat, so perhaps I was wrong to expect anything other than goodness from him. But the idea of a Jamie Foxx/ Tom Cruise production simply didn’t hint ...

It is said that Seven Samurai is one of the greatest films of all time from one of the greatest directors of all time. Many critics place it within their top ten best pictures ever produced. Looking at Seven Samurai, it’s not hard to see why. It really is one ...

The Day after Tomorrow is in a very uncomfortable place. Its primary problem is that it’s quite idiotic. That’s nothing to do with politics or whether global warming exists – the film is just asinine, plain and simple. At the beginning of the film we are told that such freak ...

I feel that I must start by confessing the following: not only is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid one of my favorite movies, but I also think that it has the best chase sequence ever committed to film. The chase sequence in the middle of the film, where Cassidy ...

I don’t have any design issues with Defiance. It’s a well shot film that’s often beautiful. There is the occasional slip up, the occasional hokey moment, but overall the acting is good and the script is good and it all works to a satisfactory level. My problem is a more ...

It seems that people fall into two camps when it comes to Titanic: either you like it or you hate it. I’ve found that those who hate it generally attempt to claim that it’s fundamentally a bad film. It’s okay to dislike a film – no film can appeal to ...

Things explode within the first two minutes of Armageddon. And the military immediately goes to DEFCON 3 for no reason. It must be, then, a Michael Bay film. No other director could compile such a spectacle. As with The Rock, there are actually things that explode that have no business ...

I enjoyed Thank You for Smoking. And while there are a multitude of reasons why, the crucial reasons are very clear: not only is it funny, but it’s very intelligent, and the mixture of the two is what makes the film.Contained within Thank You for Smoking is very sharp wit. ...

I’m not averse to documentary films, but I’m typically of the persuasion that documentaries are better suited to multi-part series on television – the likes of David Attenborough’s work; the likes of Cosmos. But there are some documentaries that fit a two-hour format. This film, The Fog of War, is ...

I am endlessly amazed by the Resident Evil film franchise. The films are terrible and rarely good, but if there’s one thing you can say, it’s that the series does have the ability to entertain, or at the very least occupy attention. Extinction is no different. The fact that it ...