Every Sunday, Gill delves into his archive of over 800 movie reviews and randomly selects three for your enjoyment! Here are this week’s…
Shut Up Little Man – An Audio Misadventure
A documentary with some very unusual subject matter, Shut Up Little Man chronicles the series of events that lead to a couple of two ordinary guys who decide to start recording the loud and obnoxious fights of their noisy neighbours. After they start circulating the cassettes, however, the recordings became a sort of viral meme. The recordings themselves are amusing in almost a Jerky Boys or Beavis and Butthead way, but what I found most interesting about Shut Up Little Man is how it charts the progression of viral media in an age long before the internet. If you’re looking for a funny, foul-mouthed documentary about some light and ridiculous subject matter, Shut Up Little Man will provide some entertainment.
3.25 out of 5
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
It’s kind of a tragedy that Batman: Mask of the Phantasm wasn’t a bigger success when it was released, for the movie has aged terrifically and makes an awesome companion piece to Batman: The Animated Series. The filmmakers clearly pulled out some of the stops when it came to this movie, making the action bigger and the stakes higher. We get some long-awaited backstory about Bruce Wayne’s transformation into Batman following the death of his parents, and we get both a new villain in the form of the Phantasm and the best of the classic Batman rogue’s gallery in the form of the Joker. With all the great voice work from the likes of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is just everything bat-fans loved about the animated series, but bigger.
3.5 out of 5
Jack Reacher
I can’t say as I had high hopes going into Jack Reacher, but as it turns out, the film makes for adequate popcorn entertainment. Part mystery, part action-thriller, Jack Reacher does a good job of establishing an interesting hook, but after the first fifteen minutes, it seems to get confused as to whether it’s trying to be an episode of CSI starring a maverick cop or yet another Tom Cruise action extravaganza. The practical car chases are a welcome change of pace from the CGI-fests that we usually see these days, but ultimately the film got little more than a smirk out of me just because we’ve seen this kind of character before. He doesn’t play by the rules, he operates outside of the law, the bad guys fear him…it’s all pretty routine, considering they named the movie after this guy. The film only shines when it comes to the inspired casting choice of Werner Herzog as the villain, but for some reason the filmmakers decided to short-change Herzog in the screentime department and we only see him for a handful of moments. If the whole movie had been a blatant face-off between Cruise and Herzog, it could have been gold. As it is, it’s passable entertainment that doesn’t break any new ground.
3 out of 5
See you next Sunday for three more thrilling short reviews!