Reviews

Children are not as foolish as adults sometimes think. I put three figures of stuffed toys in front of mine: a rabbit, a lion and a patchwork doll armed with a pencil. "Choose one to play," I suggest. They look suspicious. One rummages in the pile of plastic from the box and pulls out a pig with a rattle. "Why can't I play this," she asks. I explain that this is a storytelling game that will unfold over many sessions. That we have to meet the pig in the story before someone can play him. ...

One of Marvel's finest to date, Black Panther is sure to excite and entertain all audiences. Finally got around to seeing this last night, and as much as I was expecting a good movie, it still managed to bypass that. I was particularily impressed with the great acting from the entire cast. All the leads were great, the supporting cast was fantastic (I was terribly intimidated by the King's bodyguards). I was totally unfamiliar with the backstory of the Black Panther, not having seen him in previous movies or reading comics. The whole technological aspect was...

Super effective thriller, with real emotion, real impact. No underlying message about religion or anything like that. just a family trying to survive. It's going to be a very familiar environment to anyone that consumes modern media. There will be wisps of living in the world of The Walking Dead and such. I'm sure at more than one point, you will be reminded of Signs with Mel Gibson, but mostly you'll be wondering why they cast that girl as the daughter when she looks nothing like either parent. One thing I'm...

Looking forward to a nice two player night with my favourite gaming crony, Graham. I've packed beers, printed play aids, read the rules - twice - and I'm about to leave. The phone rings. "Matt? It's Graham. I've got a house full of teenagers. Bring some multi-player games. And some more beer." I'm in a rush, so I grab the first thing in front of me. It's Colt Express. I got it on a whim to play with my daughter. I mean: it's cheap, it's got a cool 3d train and it...

This is one of those really good movies that's going to be very tough to recommend since so many people, i think, would have a hard time with it. It's basically about an Israeli family who lose their son, while serving in the military. It takes you to all sorts of places and you can bet your house that you will not be able to predict what will happen. There are some comedic elements, but it mostly works as a pretty heavy drama. The acting is really strong which can be...

Pretty entertaining biopic on Tonya Harding largely led by an awesome performance by Allison Janney as her mother. This is one of those movies where the performances are stronger than the movie. The movie is good, no question, but it's really more about just some fantastic moments marked by strong performances, including Robbie herself who gets better and better as the movie goes. I think the main detractor for the movie is the fact that, as correctly stated up front, the screenplay is based on the "wildly conflicting" testimonials by Tonya and Jeff...

"Do you know what Space Invaders is?" I ask my daughter. "Yeah, it's that really old video game with all the funny-shaped things." It's close enough, so I let it slide. Flip Ships is like Space Invaders, I tell her. There are two rows of alien cards at the end of the table and we're working together to take them down. We've got to flip little cardboard discs off the opposite edge to try and hit them. So we try, and it's chaos, a confetti of cardboard circles raining everywhere...

So this was a big experiment for me. I wanted to bring 7-yr old Emily to her first non-kid movie that's not a cartoon. I thought this would be a good one since it deals with bullying and going to school and all that. It's adapted from the book about a young home-schooled boy who begins to attend real school. He was born with a bunch of physical abnormalities and after several plastic surgeries, his parents decide he's ready to go to school with real kids. So you can imagine what the movie is basically...

It was a bitter journey home, the wind finding seams in coats and gloves, ice frosting on cars and windows. When I reached the sanctuary of the porch I found, as well as a welcome glow of warmth, a package. Books, from a land much colder and windier than mine. I opened them, stamping in the hallway, my kids crowding round to see what they were. "Turd ... wang?", one of them attempted, brow creased by the typography. I tried not to laugh and showed them how to read the font: Trudvang. My...

Brought 7-year old Emily to this and it was a hit. I must admit I slept through at least the first half of the movie. I think trying to introduce a bunch of clay characters is tough since they are fairly indistinguishable and the voice actors aren't strong enough to make them unique. This style of animation works well for Shaun the Sheep since all the characters are pretty much the same except for Shaun, the farmer and the dog. You don't need to know the different sheep at all. So in this one, everyone looks and sounds the...