TheRetroCritic

Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart team up in Get Hard , a movie which sounds silly and is, indeed, just as silly as it sounds. The film sees Ferrell play a clueless rich dude who is one day accused of financial foul play and is promptly sentenced to 10 years in prison. In the days leading up to him being sent there, he hires the help of a car wash owner (Hart), under the incorrect assumption that he once went to prison, to help him "get hard" (as in get tough) so he can somehow survive his time behind bars. One long training montage later, the film rushes to a predictable third act and the title's double-entendre is hammered into our heads one last time just in case you forget Get Hard as soon as you leave the cinema. Which is not impossible, by the way. That's pretty much it, really, but luckily both Ferrell and Hart are charismatic and funny enough to keep you entertained throughout. The film does have some really good ideas and, at its best, it's like watching

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 19th episode, we discuss the 18th episode of  Gotham , Tyrese Gibson, Deadpool and red pandas. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes, Stitcher and Player FM) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

These past couple of weeks, which saw the Broken Lizard gang start a campaign on Indiegogo.com to produce a sequel to their 2001 cult comedy Super Troopers , certainly showed that the film definitely did have an audience as the comedy team reached their £2M goal within only a day. So, before Super Troopers 2 gets truly underway, I thought I'd look back at the first film to check that it does still hold up. Alright meow, first things first, while the film could most definitely be described as a stoner cop comedy, its writing is sharp and funny enough to work as just an all around great comedy so if drug humour and/or you're not a Police Academy superfan, fear not: you're in safe hands. The plot sees a group of goofy, juvenile state troopers face off against the local police department (led by the late, great Daniel Von Bargen) when a potential weed-trafficking ring is discovered in Vermont. The state troopers' Captain (a perfect Brian Cox) informs them that any

So I watched Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and, let me tell ya... This is not the Wars you're looking for. For one thing, the title makes no sense when you're actually watching the movie. The "Force" Awakens? The Force is not mentioned once during the entire film! I distinctly remember the Force being mentioned at least four times in the original sexylogy.  Maybe five. And as for the "Awakens", the only way that makes any sense at all is by linking the main actor, whatever his name is, who looks a heck of a lot like Robin Williams, to a film starring the iconic comedian himself called Awakenings . Then again, this movie has nothing to do with that other movie so, again, we find ourselves in a pickle.  The droids are all wrong. They're too blocky and they look too much like plastic robots. Now I understand that J.J. Abrams ( Felicity ) was very keen to go "old school" and use "practical" effects

In this 53rd episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review  The Tale Of Princess Kaguya  and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes  and now  Stitcher  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

Another Disney animated classic gets the live-action treatment as, surprisingly soon after Into The Woods , we get another interpretation of Cinderella . This time, the Mouse House is taking a more traditional approach by telling the story without updating it too much or adding too many surprises. Unlike last year's Maleficent which felt the need to turn one of the studio's most iconic and frightening villains into a misunderstood hero (urgh...), this Cinderella is basically a straight-up retelling. Minus the talking mice, though they do sort of talk throughout. While this means very little in the way of new elements to talk about, it's also somewhat refreshing to see a classic fairytale told without any forced irony or lame attempts at modernising a story as old as time itself. This is the Cinderella tale at its most earnest and, admittedly, this makes parts of it pretty darn corny and predictable. The opening 5 minutes where Ella's youth is so crazily happy all

Denzel Washington stars in this remake of The Manchurian Candidate which sees a group of soldiers come home after the war only to find that they all start having the same nightmare which makes them suspect that some kind of brainwashing happened along the way. After a bizarre encounter with Jeffrey Wright's soldier, who has pretty much lost it completely, Washington decides to try and make contact with Liev Schreiber's co-veteran, who has since moved on to working in politics. Under the supervision of his controlling mother, played by Meryl Streep, Shreiber is leading a campaign to become the new Vice President. But he slowly starts to remember the nightmares Washington mentions which paint him not as a war hero but as something else entirely. What follows is a thriller not so much focused on action as it is focused on the core mystery. The film is directed by Jonathan Demme ( Silence Of The Lambs ) and he handles the growing paranoia well despite the post-Gulf War settin

As the doors of legendary animation empire Studio Ghibli slowly close (though hopefully only for a short time), much to everyone's chagrin, here is yet another example of just how good and important these guys are to the medium. The Tale Of Princess Kaguya may sound like just another surreal folktale on paper but one look at the stunning watercolour/charcoal-style animation used here by visual maestro Isao Takahata ( Pom Poko , My Neighbors The Yamadas ) and you'll find yourself instantly mesmerised by this tale of a baby born out of a bamboo tree. While Hayao Miyazaki was and is a genius at bringing to the screen all-around great-looking, often epic stories, Takahata's forte seems to be to bring an off-beat artistry to the animation and tell predominantly emotional, melodramatic, affecting stories. Case and point: Grave Of The Fireflies . And, to a certain extent, this movie which shows us a young woman's entire life flash by her put-upon parents' eyes as the

Channing Tatum, Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo star in Foxcatcher , the Oscar-nominated film based on the shocking true story of an Olympic wrestler and his brother's destructive encounter with bizarre multimillionaire John E. Du Pont. After Tatum's wrestler Mark Schultz is called in by the wealthy entrepreneur (and avid bird watcher) to his vast estate, he is promptly hired to train for Du Pont (Carell) as part of the Foxcatcher team in the hope that another Olympic win lies ahead. Unfortunately, Du Pont's strange behaviour becomes something of a problem as it becomes quite clear that he's not quite the talented wrestling coach he painted himself out to be. Add to that a drug problem, an odd relationship with his mother (played by Vanessa Redgrave) and some altogether inappropriate behaviour and you've got yourself one awkward training environment for Schultz to say the least. Things take a turn for the worse when Du Pont hires Mark's brother David (Ruffalo

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 18th episode, we discuss the 16th and 17th episodes of  Gotham , the Red Hood gang, bears and Christian Science. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )