Avengers Assemble (US, 2012)

What’s the point? $1bn and counting… I hereby declare I am too old to review ‘popcorn’ movies as I’ve seen too many of them. That’s not to say this is a bad movie, just when you get north of 50 there are many better ways of spending three hours of your life.

X-Men: First Class (US, 2011)

I enjoyed Bryan Singer’s X-Men movies as they combined pyrotechnics with a thoughtful presentation on the effects of being different. The openly-gay Singer celebrated getting a ‘coming out’ scene (ie the mutant telling his parents) into a mainstream movie. By the third of the trilogy there were more yawns to the buck than excitement so [...]

Thor (US, 2011)

Yet another male having to prove himself to his father… yawn. Oedipus and Freud are probably the fathers of Hollywood. Are Hollywood execs yearning to prove themselves to their fathers? Are their lives so empty that they constantly seek self-realisation in the resolution of the narrative? So why am I bothering to blog this film? [...]

Ghost World (US, 2001)

Thora Hird rightly received the plaudits for this; Scarlett Johansson is now the star. Excellent adaptation of the comic satire; sensibly extending its episodic nature with the Steve Buscemi character. Interesting that the US has a thriving counter culture (or is that phrase too ’60s?); a reaction against the suffocating mainstream? (DVD, 2) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162346/