Monthly Archives: September 2016

Hunt for the Wilderpeople review

24 Saturday Sep 2016

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Ninjas! Direwolves! Child welfare!

by Thom Yee

hunt-for-the-wilderpeople-one

Hunt for the Wilderpeople images courtesy of The Orchard

Growing up is tough. Whether you grew up in a stable home with parents who loved you, as an orphan who was never lucky enough to find somewhere to belong, both your parents were shot in front of you in a senseless crime that sent you on a path of dark vengeance, or you’re like me and you never really did grow up (still the same self-serious weirdo you’ve always been), growing up is a tough thing even in the best of circumstances. That’s why there’s so many movies about it. There are moments locked away in all of our youths that have, consciously or unconsciously, become so personally meaningful or profound or scarring that they stay with us forever. Though you might not have known it at the time, those are the moments that helped to shape who you are and probably who you always will be. And they weren’t always positive experiences. Continue reading →

Green Room review

10 Saturday Sep 2016

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What a bunch of jackasses

by Thom Yee

green-room-one

Green Room images courtesy of A24

I’m a pretty critical person, both in real life (of hypocrisy, bureaucracy, “the man”) and in writing (with movies, TV… y’know, all the easier stuff we discuss on this website), but one thing I’ve usually stayed away from and we’ve generally steered clear of here on GOO Reviews is music criticism. There’s just something about the culture of music (a lot of things actually) that makes an honest, heartfelt analysis of it a really difficult thing to do for anyone who’s written for this website (at least so far), and it’s just something we’ve largely been able to avoid to this point. Until now, until I watched Green Room, a movie in many ways about music.

So here it goes. Continue reading →

The Nice Guys review

03 Saturday Sep 2016

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Violence, sex, corruption, nudity, two main characters who hate but somehow complete each other… Christmas? It’s a Shane Black movie alright.

by Thom Yee

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The Nice Guys images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Ask any movie fan about their favourite buddy movie and you’ll might get a wide variety of responses, from classics like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Midnight Cowboy to latter-day classics like Tango & Cash or White Men Can’t Jump to more recent movies like The Hangover or The Heat, but whatever your choice of favourite might be, there’s a pretty good chance one of the first movies thought of was Lethal Weapon.

In a lot of very important, very substantial ways, the Lethal Weapon movies set the standard for most of what we expect from the genre, even today when most tend to be comedies like 21 Jump Street or The Other Guys more often than straight-ahead action movies. Continue reading →