TheRetroCritic

Tim Burton being the movie wizard of my childhood, people who know me at all will know that I’m somewhat biased when it comes to Burton’s films but that said, I will attempt to objectively review this one fairly and without any emo fanboy nonsense. Then again… Dark Shadows was wicked cool you guys!!! I’m kidding, it was fine. As trendy as it is these days to pan anything Mr Burton does, sadly this review won't. I mean, granted his movies post- Mars Attacks haven’t really reached the heights of his earlier works but a so-so Tim Burton movie tends to still be way more fun than most other films of that type and Dark Shadows is no exception. Actually, there aren’t many movies of that type making this the most original Burton film in years. The mix of overdramatic soap opera and Hammer-style horror is rare but works brilliantly here. Watch as vampires and witches worry about their seafood businesses in an unknown shitty little town. Seafood lol Actually,

Some new pics from Tim Burton's upcoming Dark Shadows have recently popped up online: lol Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer and Helena Bonham Carter looking very suspicious indeed.

As both our polls finally end, I can now reveal that the film joining Captain America (voted Best Film Of 2011) in the Hall Of Fame (& Shame) as Worst Film Of 2011 is... BATTLE: LOS ANGELES   The faithful followers & visitors of the RetroCritic blog have voted and chosen... MY own pick for Worst Film Of 2011... Go figure! And no, I didn't vote several times. Believe it or not, more people disliked Battle: LA than Sucker Punch , Transformers 3 AND Alvin & The Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked . I'm guessing most skipped that last one. But what makes this Aaron Eckhart-starring sci-fi war flick so hard to get behind? Well, for one thing the awesome trailer was about as misleading as it gets: it promised tons of exciting action, loads of suspense, ground-breaking special effects, an interesting, gritty take on the familiar alien invasion plot and strong performances. But noooooo. Fuck that shit! Lets plow through sand with Team Douchebag for two hours on the offc

"The Bat, The Cat, The Penguin." Best. Tagline. Ever. For a long time, Batman Returns was not only hands down my favourite Batman film but one of my all-time favourites. To a certain extent, this is still true but time has made me a harsher critic so here's me trying to objectively review a film which has been firmly embedded in my DNA for decades. Hell, I could even hum the entire score from start to finish if I was drunk enough! Where Batman took the film noir route and was firmly inspired by detective flicks of the 40's, Batman Returns is pure Tim Burton. The snow, the quirky fairytale feel, the gothic look, the twisted sense of humour... it's a very different Gotham City to the one we were first introduced to. The film almost feels like an opera with the town hall, where most of the action takes place, acting as a kind of grand stage where all the drama and madness can take place. The film's opening is one of my personal favourite sequences of

What makes a good biopic? An accurate cast? An involving story? Strong emotional conflicts? Yes, all of those, of course. But also a good biopic needs to tell us something new about the person being looked at. Otherwise, what are you left with besides people in funny disguises? Not much it seems, as My Week With Marilyn clearly demonstrates. From the offset it's clear that although there is a lot there story-wise to work with, the film will never even begin to scratch the surface of what's essentially the meat of the whole thing. Instead of focusing on Monroe's struggle to work in a film with Laurence Olivier, which could have had some dramatic potential, we instead follow the whole thing through the eyes of young Colin, some lucky-ass kid with no apparent personality, whose kinda-affair with the star is told through pretentious voice-overs, unlikely reconstructions and dialogs. All in all, we learn that Marilyn Monroe had trouble being recognized as a "rea

Those familiar with my less-than-glowing review of Lost's first season already know my stance on that snooze fest. Whoop-dee-freakin'-doo! We're looking down a hole! That was TOTALLY worth a million episodes! Grrrr... Anyway, onto Season 2 and, you know what? I have to hand it to the show: it learns from its mistakes. A heck of a lot of my criticisms are tended to in a superior second season which not only has an awesome subplot (which amazingly does deliver!) and things actually happening (almost) every episode but it introduces two of the show's best ever characters and disposes of some unwelcome cast members. It all begins in the "hatch" found at the end of the first season and although not nearly enough is done with the whole subplot that goes with it, it provides a new equilibrium for our colorful crew of troubled assholes with good hearts to struggle with. A lot of time is spent introducing the Anna-Lucia character, played by notorious tough-co

Alien invasion disaster movies have always been a hit-and-miss affair. From the old Earth vs The Flying Saucers -type B movies to more recent big budget efforts like Independence Day . You'd think such a simple concept would be pretty straight-forward and easy to get right. Not so. Unfortunately Battle: LA, like so many similar films before it, fails to deliver. Instead we are given a kind of B-side cliched war flick with rubbish District 9 -style aliens thrown in. Earlier this year we had the awful Skyline in the same vein and although Battle: LA isn't qute as dire, it's still pretty poor all around. It's like the film contains all the shittest cliches and flaws which made Independence Day so cheesy but minus Jeff Goldblum, Randy Quaid and ANY sense of fun whatsoever. What's left? Not very much alas. Early on we're introduced to the film's main characters: a bunch of Marines, who are about as likeable and interesting as the plastic chair I'm c

Robert Downey Jr should be in every movie. Even as an extra or something: just there. His impressive comeback is no huge surprise in that he is one of the best actors working today but it is very welcome. A film like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, without him, would no doubt had been forgotten and left for dead...especially with THAT title! Thankfully though, there's life in this old dog yet. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang stars Downey Jr as a petty thief turned actor turned detective who gets entangled in a twisted Raymond Chandler-style story that's actually kind of hard to follow...but then again so was The Big Sleep . We're introduced to this world by a terrific self-conscious voiceover courtesy of Downey Jr himself and although the film's unique tongue-in-cheek style is a tad jarring at first you soon get into it and join the gang on their wacky adventure. The film itself is stylish, fun, clever, entertaining and very funny. Downey Jr and Val Kilmer make a good double act as they

  Uwe Boll directs (that's a big word) this mess of a video game adaptation and offers us little more than about a million jittery flashbacks, some of the worst acting ever filmed and basically one of the most boring films I've seen in a very long time. Three things save this turkey from the dreaded 1 star rating: gore, boobs and Ben Kingsley. As catastrophically rubbish as Kristanna Loken's acting may be...she is compelling to say the least (though not so much in the big clown rubbery pants she gets near the end lol). The gore is gratuitous but fun and Ben Kingsley can do "creepy bald man" in his sleep.  The biggest disappointment here may very well be Michael Madsen who is a complete non-event. It's almost as if he refused to act and instead stood in front of the camera with his ridiculous Highlander haircut waiting for the "ker-ching" sound of his pay being counted. Overall, this is dire and it was so dire I actually found myself missing House