Change Your Image
squaremilenews
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Pistol: Track 2: Rotten (2022)
'Pistol' Was Rotten - Until Now
The second episode is aptly titled as once Johnny arrives 'Pistol' finally has an added edge and humour, lacking in the cliche-ridden disappointing Steve Jones-dominated debut.
Not an easy character to play, is John Lydon, without falling into the cartoon-character trap and we all remember what a mess was made of him in the 'Sid & Nancy' film.
His presence inevitably joins scene-stealers Jordan and McLaren as the most riveting characters in the show as our interest in Steve Jones is stretched as thin as PVC.
I was even encouraging the police who were giving him a well-deserved shoeing to give it some welly, so tiresome was he becoming.
If you gave up after the first episode, then give 'Pistol' a chance and watch 'Rotten' give the series and England the kick up the arse she needs.
Nobody (2021)
More Toppings Than Pizza Hut - Which Is Also Dead
The body count is huge in this comedic glam-violence orgy of killing.
Some may compare it to Taken - a one-man snuff machine protecting his family against the bad guys.
That's what this film is.
If there is not a manner of death in this movie that is to your fancy then you don't want it.
Tales of the Unexpected: I Like It Here in Wilmington (1984)
Tour de Loggia!
This is a stand-out, star-studded episode, adding some much-needed quality to Series 7.
Yes, it is one of the 'American ones' which have been patchy at best, but this frantic, almost farcical black comedy deserves a much higher rating than it has here at imdb.
We have a Tour de force from Robert Loggia (Scarface), who dominates the entire story with a completely overbearing personality and Tom Smothers (of comedy act Smothers Brothers fame) as his reserved and quieter business partner.
Loggia is a garment company boss and his gorgeous wife is played by Susan Strasberg (daughter of legendary Actors Studio founder Lee Strasberg, the guru of The Method).
The performances carry the story, rather than the other way around and yes we have a genuine twist at the conclusion.
Recommended.
Stan & Ollie (2018)
Not A Dry Eye In This House
I've often wondered why the brilliant 'Laurel & Hardy' twenty-minute Hal Roach shorts are no longer shown on the BBC as they often were up the the late 80's.
I've just realised after watching this wonderful film that it's because such broadcasts would expose how ordinary so much of today's tv is.
These two guys, Laurel (played by Steve Coogan) and Hardy (John C Reilly) were the funniest pair of performers you will ever see and everyone involved in making this film has obvious affection and love for them.
The film centres on their final theatrical tour, Oliver's failing health and the demise of their once prolific movie careers.
However, they had so much admiration in the bank from adoring fans desperate to see them the tour was always going to be a great success and the way their story is handled here, so touching and so moving does justice to these two greats.
All the Money in the World (2017)
Listen up - This Is A Very Good Film. 'Ear! 'Ear!
Based on a true crime I knew very little about - apart from something nasty involving an ear - 'All The Money In The World' had me completely engrossed from the very start.
It looks and feels fantastic, as you would expect from a Ridley Scott film, and takes us back to the 1970's when the grandson of the world's richest-ever man (not sure about this claim) is kidnapped in Italy.
Grandad John Paul Getty is not too keen on coming up with the ransom and we witness the agony the mother of JPG III goes through in trying to get her teenage son back.
The film switches back and forth between scenes at the old man's grand English country estate and the contrasting caged hovel his grandson is held captive in while painfully slow negotiations lumber on.
Highly recommended.
The First Purge (2018)
Purgatory
I've always felt like I needed a shower after experiencing the previous Purge movies, which I had a morbid fascination to watch despite the sickening levels of violence they contained.
The Purge franchise introduces us to a USA in the near-future, where for one day a year there is no law and rather inevitably the citizens indulge in an orgy of mayhem.
Now this film has a different feel and reveals the motivation of the Purge - the annihilation of non-whites by a nationalist right-wing and obviously white government called the New Founding Fathers of America.
Really? The makers of this film obviously have a political agenda that can be summed up as whites: bad, black/hispanic/asians good.
For God's sake we even have robed KKK killers showing up.
The themes expressed in this film are not healthy and contribute to the existing divisions in American society, despite non-whites probably having the greatest opportunities anywhere on the planet, even in countries where they make up the majority.
Ok, I'm off for a shower.........
The Informant! (2009)
Whistleblower Chokes On Pea
Layers, more layers, it goes on and on when corporate informer Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) starts blabbing to the FBI about dodgy shenanigans at his mid-west corn-producing employers.
Who do we believe? Where are the truths? Things are not a simple as they may initially seem.
This is a quirky production, y'know the type, kinda colourful in a cartoon postcard kind of way with an optimistic voiceover from our main character.
It is not one of those heavy, heavy expose's investigating the workings of huge corporations with tense court scenes and the like.
No, the touch is certainly kept light and the subject-matter all the more interesting because it focuses in on the individual rather than the faceless corporate edifice.
Not laugh-out-loud despite being described as a comedy, but reasonably entertaining and worth checking out.
Suburbicon (2017)
Good Story, But Save Us The White-Hating George
There are some really big Hollywood-hitters behind this good story, which can't help but have a dig at the white Americans of the 1950's, portraying them as evil racists.
Directed by George Clooney and written and conceived by the Coen brothers we have a decent mystery/thriller involving a home invasion murder in the mythical neighbourhood of 'Suburbicon.'
Hollywood cannot help, but mock the row upon row of identikit houses in this community, which they ignore would be a paradise for most of the world's population even today.
Cars in driveways, guys mowing lawns, a postman that you actually knew. Yeah, what a horror George. It must have been hell for those people.
Where do you live Clooney? I wonder what the racial demographic is of the neighbourhood you have chosen to call home.
Anyway, back to the movie. It looks great and the racism of 'Suburbicon' is handled in a surreal, interesting way as a side-note to the main story, with mobs of violent residents picketing the one black family as if it's an everyday occurrence.
Nothing to see here. A shrug of the shoulders.
The main story, however, does keep one engaged and I was genuinely interested to discover the fates of the characters up to the very end.
Happy Death Day (2017)
It's like Deja Vu (All Over Again)
'Groundhog Day' meets 'Scream' as an obnoxious, blonde college girl keeps re-living the same day. The last day of her life.
Okay, we see her get stabbed, burned alive, hanged etc...but is that what the story is all about?
Of course not. It's all about self-improvement as this arrogant, sorority b**** experiences her dismissiveness of others in a never-ending loop.
So she pays more attention to others, rebels against her in-crowd group, helps a closet gay accept his sexuality, reconnects with family etc.
This journey continues as does her quest to survive the day and discover the identity of her killer.
Going in Style (2017)
No Style, No Substance
What I could never get by in watching this film is the casting of the great Sir Michael Caine.
Now cockney Mike is a wonderful star/actor, but a Londoner who has retired from a blue-collar factory job during his 40 years-plus in the USA and now living in a New York brownstone in the shadow of Brooklyn Bridge. Really?
Just throw us a back story, one line, anything as to how something so incredibly unlikely ever happened.
This movie is in the tradition of the crime caper, but lacks the wit and charm to be anything memorable.
Even three big names such as Sir Michael, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin fail to give any flavour to this bland fayre.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
Is This A Dark Comedy?
I can't believe it is because the violence scenes are stomach-churning rather than comedic.
There is eye-gouging; face stamping; leg-breaking; arm breaking and a bit of electrocution, but that's just a bit of light relief compared to everything else.
This is not a prison-movie really because Vince Vaughan finds himself in some sort of castle dungeon run by black-clad fascists led by cigar-smoking Don Johnson, who is the dictator of his own private fiefdom, which somehow is part of the US penal system.
We have a hint Vaughan's character was a boxer earlier in life, but now he's an expert in all martial arts, taking down armed prison wardens and hardened gangsters bare-handed.
All in, all a rather bizarre watch.
I, Tonya (2017)
Tons Of Fun
The story of disgraced Olympic ice-skater Tonya Harding is told to us in a pseudo-style documentary fashion with the actors recalling the events that led to the knee-capping scandal of her main rival.
There is cartoon-ish style violence throughout with Tonya's head being smashed into mirrors and the like and her mother using her for knife-throwing practice.
The characters are one-step outside of reality, which fits the mad, crazy world of Tonya perfectly as she struggles to get by domestic violence, lack of money and a cast of idiots around her to achieve her Olympic goal.
The House (2017)
SNL Cocktail Falls Flat.
I suppose the meeting goes something like this: "Wow. You think you can get Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler on the same page with this?"
"Yep, they're on board, two Saturday Night Live standouts, with Will obviously the bigger name, it can't miss."
Hollywood does not think it really matters what the story/script is about once you have these two performers.
Anything will do and that's certainly the case with this dreadful film by Andrew Jay Cohen, the man who brought us the awful 'Bad Neighbours.'
He's just repeated the trick of pulling in a couple of names. That film starred Seth Rogen and Zac Efron and resulted in a sequel!
'The House' is billed as a comedy, but nothing funny happens, there are no clever/witty lines, zero.
Stop paying for this garbage you are only encouraging them.
Mom and Dad (2017)
Hollywood's Attack On The American Family Continues
The adult characters in this film really, really hate being parents.
This is even before the gory, violent scenes that are pretty sickening to be honest.
The film explores that favourite Hollywood subject of the misery of people imprisoned behind that white picket fence, of adults who hate what they have become, as if their American dream is one big fraud.
The kids steal from them, the kids do drugs, they hate school.
Is living in a wealthy middle-class neighbourhood really so hellish?
As far as the smart Hollywood cynics are concerned, yes it is.
The Bad Batch (2016)
So Disgusting I Turned Off After 10 Mins
Just because director Ana Lily Amirpour, a Kent girl from Margate would you believe, has a yearning to place disgusting images on a movie screen does not mean you have to watch.
I can't believe someone who goes around with these sick images in her head was given the finances to bring it to movie-reality.
To watch a young girl have her arm and then her leg slowly sawn-off and thrown on to a grill is not my idea of an enjoyable film experience.
Now, I watch horror, I've seen violent movies, I'm not a censor-loving nut that bangs on about extreme content in films, but this was really beyond what society should be exposing itself to.