It’s taken nearly eight years, but at last we have a sequel to Zack Snyder’s 300, just in case anyone was asking for such a thing. Co-written and produced by Snyder, and directed by green hand Noam Murro, 300: Rise of an Empire is a timid and forgettable follow-up
Browsing: Lance Harris
Joel and Ethan Coen make films that should be too odd and oblique for the mainstream, reaping piles of awards, rave reviews and a measure of commercial success in return. The brothers’ latest film – the circuitous, downbeat Inside Llewyn Davis – spares a
From thrilling science-fiction sagas to revisionist Westerns and taut political thrillers, 2013 had plenty to offer at the movies. This list of the pick of the year is based only on South African cinematic releases for 2013 and excludes films that have not yet been released here
We’ve launched into a new console generation, but the older Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are bowing out with games of such quality and diversity that you could happily play their back catalogues for another year before you get bored. Meanwhile, the struggling Wii-U is slowly building out a respectable list of titles, the mobile
1992. Nirvana had just blasted Michael Jackson from the top of America’s Billboard album chart and the search for the next big guitar band from the indie underground was underway. For a brief, glorious time, major label A&R men were falling over themselves to sign up acts with radio-unfriendly
The integrity of the real-world man he is based upon is hotly disputed, but the cinematic character of Captain Phillips in Paul Greengrass’s film of the same name is one of the most nuanced portrayals of heroism we have seen on film this year. As played by Tom Hanks, Phillips is a model of
Forget the ominous title and the fact that it is directed by Alan Taylor of television’s Game of Thrones. Thor: The Dark World is about as dark as an episode of He-Man & the Masters of the Universe. The sequel to 2011’s Thor is another of those likeable but lightweight comic book films that Marvel
The most remarkable thing about Gravity, the new film from director Alfonso Cuarón, is how quiet it is for long stretches of its running time. Minutes go by where the only sounds you hear are radio chatter between its stranded astronauts and Houston – space is a vacuum, after all – and perhaps a few ominous
With District 9 in 2009, South African expat Neill Blomkamp established himself as a filmmaker of promise with a highly individual vision and a distinctive voice. But a cack-handed script means Blomkamp’s new film, Elysium, doesn’t quite deliver on the potential of his breakthrough debut
Michael Bay’s usual tools of choice are the bludgeon and the chainsaw rather than the scalpel and the microscope. That makes the “chaos cinema” auteur about as well suited to making a film that dissects the American dream as a bull is to running a china shop. So it’s hardly surprising that you won’t find the subtlety