TheRetroCritic

Directed by Joel Coen and released back in 1991, Barton Fink is a dark comedy about a playwright who gets the opportunity to write a wrestling picture for a big Hollywood studio but quickly experiences writer's block. This is perhaps one of the Coen Brothers' least well-known yet best movies. It failed at the box-office upon its release but sweeping the Cannes Film Festival, earning a few Oscar nominations and being a critical hit more than made up for that. The film follows Barton Fink (John Turturro), a passionate playwright who wants to create important work for the "common man", as he travels to Los Angeles to write a wrestling film for a Hollywood producer. He soon experiences writer's block in his dingy hotel room and befriends his neighbour Charlie (John Goodman) before slowly but surely spiralling down into confusion and despair. Part-Hollywood satire, part-surreal thriller, Barton Fink is a strange little movie that explores various big themes witho

I finally talk about Kong: Skull Island .

With cinematic superhero crossover universes currently competing, so too it looks like monster universes are about to fight it out with The Mummy possibly being the first of a modern Universal Monsters reboot franchise and Godzilla facing Kong in an upcoming sequel. Kong: Skull Island introduces us to the mighty King Kong in a prequel of sorts where a group approved by the US government travels to the evasive Skull Island with a military escort in the 1970's. Don't expect Kong to get chained up and brought back to New York City where he climbs up the Empire State Building etc. in this one. There are some clever nods to these familiar events throughout the film but it's mercifully not just a straight-up retread and, stylistically, it is very different than Peter Jackson's King Kong from 2005. Kong: Skull Island owes a lot more to the likes of Apocalypse Now , Predators and the more over-the-top classic Kong sequels than the 1933 original or any remake. The ea

Directed by Steven Spielberg, Always is a 1989 romantic comedy/drama starring Richard Dreyfuss as an aerial firefighter who is killed while trying to save someone else and who then comes back as a spirit to guide another pilot in his life. Loosely based on WWII drama  A Guy Named Joe , Always tends to be one of Spielberg's most forgotten films mostly due to the fact it's arguably his cheesiest effort so those not too keen on sentimental stories or those expecting an action film won't exactly go wild for this one. Having said that, this is still a gorgeous-looking film with a lot going for it. The criminally underrated Richard Dreyfuss is at his most charming and cocky here as reckless pilot Pete who constantly worries his girlfriend Dorinda (played by Holly Hunter) with his careless flying. Pete almost crashes on her birthday and, while this leads to a heartfelt romantic moment, it also leads to Dorinda giving him an ultimatum to get him to stop risking his life at ev

In 1994, for some reason the world decided it was a good idea to make a live-action movie adaptation of The Flintstones , a cartoon as old as time itself about a goofy caveman suburbia with dinosaurs and modern-day appliances thrown in. John Goodman takes on the Fred role with Rick Moranis playing his best friend and neighbour Barney Rubble. Their respective wives being Elizabeth Perkins (as Wilma) and Rosie O'Donnell (as Betty). Speaking of the actors, the cast in this movie is pretty darn spot-on and you can tell a real effort was made to make the film look like the classic show. The sets are surprisingly detailed, elaborate and impressive and, while some of the dinosaurs/animals are CGI, a majority of them are literally made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop and they look fantastic. The plot involves Barney and Betty adopting a wild child called Bam Bam after borrowing money from Fred. To make it up to him, Barney switches aptitude tests with Fred and the latter is selected

George Clooney's latest film, The Monuments Men , sets out to tell the little-told true story of a group of ageing American soldiers (and a French dude) whose mission it was to recover as many precious art pieces as possible from the nazis who had stolen them from all over an occupied France. The film opens by giving us some background and Clooney's lieutenant is soon off to gather his team of all-stars including Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban and Hugh Boneville... together at last! After a promising Indiana Jones-esque first few minutes involving Cate Blanchett's cartoonish French (at least I think that's what she was going for) spy, the film's tone switches to something more akin to Stripes or the MASH TV series before occasionally dipping back into serious mode. Clooney clearly wanted to even out the film by putting in a sad, emotional moment for every jokey, light-hearted scene, Disney-style, but, after watching The Monu

In the early days of Pixar's world domination, this little film about a universe where monsters harness the fear of human children which they frighten at night (through their closets) to use as energy came out and although on paper it sounds like the most terrifying thing you'll ever see, the movie was quite the opposite. Aimed at younger viewers, Monsters Inc. is closer to, say, the likes of A Bug's Life or Cars in terms of its target audience but better than both. Thankfully, it's just about charming enough to keep older viewers' interest there throughout. We follow two monsters, one voiced by John Goodman, the other by Billy Crystal, who mistakenly end up with a kid human transcending the human world into their own. This causes all sorts of shenanigans, as you can imagine, since children are seen as the monsters in this world, and it all builds up to a confrontation with Steve Buscemi's chameleon-style monster (the last part of that phrase sounds a bi

And so Todd Phillips ends his gross-out opus with a third film that critics are already not liking very much at all. After complaining that The Hangover Part II was too similar to the original film, now people are complaining that this one isn't really about a hangover and is, in fact, too different. All this can be boiled down to one simple truth: The Hangover shouldn't have been a trilogy to begin with. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the first film. It was completely overhyped and ultimately completely overrated but it had a fun Memento -esque concept and a fresh, enjoyable cast. It was a good comedy, an entertaining watch, nothing more. In order to turn something like The Hangover into a trilogy, it was obvious that both the cast and the original concept would need to return. Which they did, in The Hangover II. A film which certainly upped the danger-factor for our characters but ended up feeling a bit too mean-spirited. Yes, it's the humour that has suff