Ghostbusters (2016 movie)

Category: Comedy about supernatural beings/reboot of established IP

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Sometimes you can have good ingredients and experienced chefs and a tried-and-tested method, and sure, the end product will look like a cake, and the texture will resemble a cake, but when you go to consume it, it hits you that it just doesn't feel like a cake should - especially when you remember you've had a better cake before that was made from the same ingredients.

And that is the best way I can summarise Ghostbusters (2016), otherwise known as the female Ghostbusters movie. So yes, the movie has people who can act. The movie features people who can do comedy. The movie features special effects and props. Heck, the movie even has some of the original cast members - so that should mean this is a good comedy and an even better film, right? Wrong. The final product looks like a film that acts like a comedy, but in the end, something just doesn't sit right.

Plot-wise, Ghostbusters 2016 is a fairly direct copy of the 1983 original - four people by various happenstance find themselves in the business of capturing ghosts in New York City, all the while seeking the validation of the city they live in and those around them.

The Last Days Of Chez Nous (1992 Movie)

Category: Drama/High Drama

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Most consider the 1970s up until the late 1990s to be the Golden Age of Australian cinema, and to a very large extent, I agree. From my perspective, it was after the year 2000 that Australian movies became very preachy and political and were more-or-less a vehicle for pushing a socially-acceptable message that would resonate with the high-falutin' film critic types, rather than just being a good story that the average Australian would like. Alongside that, Australian movies have had a long-held reputation for just not being very good (save for the odd exception).

Case in point - back in the Golden Age, Australia had a laugh at three guys in drag on a bus, we loved people dancing strictly in ballrooms, and we even loved the animated movie with the two fish and the shark! So don't tell us we don't make good movies - we just don't make as many as we think we do, and the ones that aren't good are usually made by wankers, for wankers.

And the reason for my spiel is is that The Last Days Of Chez Nous clearly comes from that pre-2000's era - this movie simply tells a compelling human drama and doesn't try to moralise or demonise or semonise. It was a movie made because someone thought the book would look good on screen, and you don't need a massive budget for it.

If you somehow don't happen to speak French, chez nous basically means "our house", so put two and two together - you get "the last days of our house", a poignant title because TLDoCN tells the story of Beth and Jean-Pierre, two contrasting people in a marriage of convenience...

Becky (2020 Movie)

Category: Dramatic House Siege Thriller

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Kevin James as a neo-nazi? And is that Kurrgan? The surprises don't stop in the drama/thriller titled Becky.

Kevin James must have had a chat to his agent and said "Mate, I just can't seem to undo the stain of Paul Blaart: Mall Cop and Paul Blaart: Mall Cop 2" to which his agent replied "Oh, Kevin, baby, do I have just the role for you!" - so in Becky, James breaks the mold to portray the dramatic lead in this story of a group of neo-Nazi prison escapees who besiege a house looking for a particularly valuable item stored inside, unbeknownst to the current occupants. And stopping them from completing their plot is the wily and angsty teenage girl Becky, who runs a lethal counter-attack operation…from her cubby house.

If you're thinking this is Home Alone on steroids, you wouldn't be too far off the mark - though don't let that detract. This isn't a great movie, but it's also not too bad and is a slightly gory way to waste 90 minutes. Kevin James has shown he is capable of playing loveable characters…and now he can play quite unlovable ones as well.

And if you're a fan of Attitude Era-WWE, you will recognise Robert Maillet who was for a period was known as Kurrgan.

STAR RATING: 3.25/5 stars.

The Blair Witch Project (1999 Movie)

Category: Found footage horror/drama

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While it's easy to blame TBWP for the found-footage horror genre, you can't deny that this movie still holds up some 20-something years later, especially knowing the numerous FFH movies that have come about since.

What makes this movie gripping is that it really does come across as legitimate found-footage - the camera work is shaky, amateur and sometimes misses things, the arguments between the cast members come across as authentic (and apparently were), and the ending is so ambiguous that you don't know what really happened, especially when we never ever see who (or what) is out to hurt the crew.

Far from hurting the film, the low-budget actually helps the film to stand out - there are no special effects, no CGI, no background music, and you don't need to do make-up and give credits for an enemy that never appears on screen.