Review: Could 'Breaking Bad' be the best TV show ever?

  Warning: Potential spoilers - tread lightly... 

The answer is, at least for the moment, yes.

In much the same way that LOST totally captivated its audience with polar bears and trap doors while it was on, especially as it neared its fairytale-like final episodes, Breaking Bad has had that same effect on those who don't even know their Walter White's from their tighty whities. But what is it that makes the show force you so close to the edge of your seat that you may as well invest in a giant bean bag?

Review: Monsters University is scarily good fun

It's enough to bring HCTV back to life! That's right, Monsters University is exactly how a sequel-prequel should be done and sits right up there on that most-of-the-time unreachable shelf of cinematic orgasms that did it better than the last time they were at it. It's sat in-between Toy Story 2 and, of course, Spider-man 2. Without a doubt, it's a better movie than Monsters Inc. And, if that statement is making you scream disapprovingly at your PC (or, indeed, mobile device) that's fab! You're giving the monsters exactly what they're after!

Review: Wreck-It Ralph is gaming's 'Toy Story'

Wreck-It Ralph will flood your heart with warm and mushy emotions akin to those Toy Story unexpectedly shoved in your face back in the 90s. The idea is also basically the same as Toy Story, just set in a digital world. Of course, it doesn't make scientific sense. Toys may very well spring to life somehow or another when our backs are turned - that's magic! - but video game characters certainly don't wonder to and fro through electrical wires sprawled out across an arcade floor. We know how electricity works, duh! Nonetheless, it's a fun-filled romp, sprinkled with references to famous games (a personal favourite is the MGS exclamation mark) and even featuring characters from a few of them! It's a recipe for success, however it just doesn't feel like it's as good as it could have been. The question is why...?

Review: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D

  Warning: Blood splattered spoilers - in 2D! 

This latest Texas Chainsaw adaptation/sequel/reboot in a long line of adaptations/sequels/reboots is horrific, but not in the way you'd expect. It's so shockingly empty and uneventful, so dull and so bland, so predictable and remorselessly unaffected by any sort of desire to put out something new or in any way imaginative or - and here's the ultimate flaw - scary. Basically, it's a brainless excuse to shower a 3D-goggle wearing audience with masses of blood and gore that's so unrealistic it's laughable, so why the hell John Lussenhop felt the need to put so much of it in is unfathomable.

Review: Quartet is four times what you think it'll be

Quartet is one of those films that at first looks as if it could have been shown on ITV1, that you half-heartedly waltz into the cinema to watch thinking you're probably not going to enjoy very much. Not because it looks awful, but because it's filled with old people and it's about old stuff and you think, perhaps rightly so, that it's a film aimed at old people so they can look at all the old people in it and say, "These people are old, just like me!" - and you'd be majorly, incredibly, massively wrong. Perhaps the most wrong you've ever been in your life, in fact. It's quite simply an unforgettable picture led by a fantastic cast of the best selection of British actors who've all been pointed and shouted at by Dustin Hoffman - this is the very first movie he's directed and he's done a bloody good job of it! But you're probably wondering how it can be so darn good when it doesn't even feature the smallest of explosions!?

Review: The Hobbit - An Unexpectedly lengthy Journey

 Warning: Spoilers, you fools! 

It's not that it's too long - nearly three hours worth of storytelling is perfectly acceptable for a good movie - it's that it quite simply hasn't got enough stuff to fill such a big gap. So, instead, it pads itself out with long lingering looks or dwarves singing or slow-mo fight scenes or shots of mountains... You see, The Hobbit is a short book really, compared to The Lord Of The Rings, and it's a 'small-scale' story. There's plenty here that would be cut if the plan was a two-film tale as opposed to the trilogy we've got ahead of us - and it'd be cut because it's no good. It's filler, not killer. Dull. Maybe it worked in the book but on the screen it's just there because it is. But, somewhere in there, there's a few bits and pieces that make you go all wibbly inside and remind us why LOTR was such fun!

Review: The Life of Pi, plus some bits either side

 Roaring: There's a couple of mild spoilers beneath the surface! 

The book of ‘The Life of Pi’ is probably a lot better than the film. Without having read it, the adventure we see here is astounding, even jaw dropping. Despite the gobsmackability of the picture, it seems that there’s an awful lot included that the movie doesn’t really need, bogging it down either end – which is a shame, because the proper meat of the story is magical and exciting and beautiful and has a tiger in it… So, yay for the tiger! But if a lorry load extra filler nonsense was chopped from the edit, we’d have a more concise, less jarring movie to watch! However, bear in mind that a lot of what comes across as needless in the film is probably smashing to read in the book, because it’s no doubt fully explored. Here, it just serves to make everything seem surprisingly long winded, making the ‘oomph’ factor a little trickier to find - but rest assured it’s in there somewhere!

Review: Motherfucking End of fucking Watch motherfuckers

 Warning, negro: There are a few motherfucking spoilers in this review! 

End of Watch is a very manly movie, complete with a strong bromance, guns, gun fights, an absurd amount of shaky-cam, heavy use of the word 'motherfucker' (among some others), gangsters and of course, sexy ladies. But it takes us chaps down a route that's not so macho after all, one that encourages us to shed a tear or two and maybe even hold on to our heterosexual friends' hand, petrified that something horrific might happen to our two favourite penis-wielding policemen, Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena).

Review: The Master is a mystery

 Warning: Mild spoilers contained within... 

Who else went in to see The Master expecting to officially have their minds well and truly blown? Who expected intense character-driven drama and intricate storytelling? Who felt a little short-changed? Sure, all the vital 'Paul Thomas Anderson' ingredients are there, but it seems they've not been mixed and merged together as well as we might have hoped. More than anything, the film's a bit of a mystery. It's very long, brilliantly acted, but ultimately not really worth the effort. There's a point in there though, somewhere.

Review: Argo fuck yourself

 هشدار: خوانده شده بعد از اینکه شما تماشا 

Argo packs one hell of a punch, leaving you feeling tense for hours after it's finished - a strong cast and perfect pacing ensures a nail-biting journey, but even though we're informed at the start of the film that it's based off true events (no The Imposter-style misunderstandings this time round!), it's often quite tricky to tell how much of the action has been dramatised for the sake of nudging us closer and closer to the edge of our seats. The question is, of course, who gives a shit, really? It's a fine piece of cinema that opens your eyes, forces you to confront a scary world and offers a chuckle or two along the way - even if it's a little over the top.

Review: M's the Bond girl in 'Skyfall'

James Bond is back, showing The Bourne Legacy how a motorbike chase should be done and, arguably, better than ever. Skyfall is definitely a Bondgasm - it's 'classic Bond meets new Bond' and misery guts Daniel Craig seems to have a lot more fun as 007 in his third outing than in any of his others. With M by his side, he embarks on a surprisingly personal and visually jizz-worthy adventure set mostly right here in the UK. Get set for shots of Big Ben, tube crashes and an awful lot of the word 'bloody'.

Review: Kids seeing Frankenweenie need Parental Guidance

 Warning: Spoilers - in black & white. 

Frankenweenie is supposed to be a spooky black and white cartoon caper for kids that'd probably have looked a lot nicer in colour and would be better suited shoved into the schedules on Nickleodeon. There's very little here that's cinema worthy - it's short on laughs, lacking a nifty story arc and it's all very one-dimensional (which is ironic considering it's been released in 3D). Victor's parents are the most neglectful to have ever been animated, but as a member of the audience you'll feel just as neglected as their morbid son.

Review: Ruby Sparks is magical but mostly human

  Warning: The following spoilers are not fiction. 

Ruby Sparks does cinematic magic the way it's done best - it puts us in the same confusion-filled boat as our lead character, once famous but now struggling writer Calvin Weir-Field. He has no idea how the ginger-haired and quite fanciable lady-character he's been writing about has suddenly become real, walking around in his flat, making eggs and claiming to be his girlfriend - and neither do we! He's fallen desperately in love with her while dreaming her up and writing her down, but can he love her now she's turned up in his reality? The answer is yes. At least, for a while anyway. Even as the tale begins to take on a sinister turn of events it always remembers that something magical on screen tends to have more of a hold on its audience when true, believable emotions get tied up in the chaos.

Review: Enjoy Sinister's spooks while they last

  Warning: A terrifying number of spoilers lurk below! 

Sinister does a fabulous job at setting the scene, switching the lights off and putting us through several nights of sheer hell. A strange soundtrack adds to the suspense as we watch tech-savvy Ellison Oswalt piece together facts and figures from creepily grainy footage of gruesome deaths. It's just that, as with almost every single spooky or ghost-orientated film that's been made in the past couple of decades, the ending is not as scary as it thinks it is and actually sort of ruins all the good stuff that comes before - and it is really very good stuff.

Review: Doctor Who - 'The Angels shit on Manhattan'

 Warning: Shut your eyes or you'll see spoilers! No, wait! Don't! 

The Angels are not what creates the sinister feelings in this episode. The sense of impending doom comes from the way in which it is written, directed and acted. Compare this to the previous four episodes and ask yourself if you even needed to watch any of them? This is what it's all about. Yes, there's a whole load of paradox crap and timey wimey nonsense, but that's just something we have to accept is a part of the Moffat-driven era. The vibe here is what we want more of - the darkness, difficult choices and the Doctor's emotions and mistakes at the forefront of all that's going on, rather than his hilarious jokes and ability to run through corridors at lightning speed. Moody Doctor Who is best.

Review: Hope Springs gets harder than it looks...

Hope Springs is a bit like The Five Year Engagement, yet completely different. They're both about couples facing serious problems with their relationships. One couple wants to get married and the other one has been married for over thirty years. With both, you sit in the cinema expecting more of a comedy than you get, because it slowly reveals itself as more of an emotionally heavy, tear-inducing, armrest-clenching drama than a quirky little romcom. One, however, delves even deeper than the other...

Review: Doctor Who - 'A Town Called Mercy'...

... and a horse called Susane.

 Warning: Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! (That's a spoiler warning in 'horse'...)  

Looks like Steven Moffat's shown us some mercy! At long last! An episode of Doctor Who that's ridiculously brilliant, almost beyond measure. Completely perfect. Nothing wrong with it whatsoever - five stars. Well, almost. Nearly. No, sorry, not at all. In an ideal world, maybe, but this - it's bearable and that makes a most welcome change. Instead of legging it through narrow spaces as he'd usually be doing on a Saturday night, the Doctor seems to take a breather, have a few conversations and save a town, rather than the entire universe. Nice.

Review: Doctor Who - 'Riding Dinosaurs on a Spaceship'

 Warning: Spoilers here, to the sound of trumpety music. 

Doctor Who's answer to Jurassic Park is an episode filled with dinosaurs and spaceships and it should be brilliant. This, this is just awful.

Honest to god - can anybody fathom why there needs to be such a constant flow of comedic, bouncy music running through the entire episode? Again - it should be fine, it should just be a right laugh and a heap of fun  - nothing wrong with that - but it doesn't sit right. Not one bit. There's every opportunity here to create a serious science fiction show that has a sense of humour - simple. The problem with Doctor Who is that it's 90% pantomime and 10% making up for the lack of genuine drama with childish slapstick and melodramatics. For exaxmple, the two robots that feature in this episode are quite entertaining, like something from Hitchiker's Guide, but was there any room for them? Did they ever really have a purpose, or a chance to shine, or were they simply squeezed in because Doctor Who's got to be so fucking hilarious these days? Quit it with the comedy act!

Review: Lawless is bloody brilliant

 Warning: One or two gunslinging spoilers lay ahead! 

Lawless is a wildly intense and frighteningly brutal gangster film adaptation of Matt Bondurant's book, 'The Wettest County in the World', and they're both based on a true story - which is a bit scary! It's crammed with a whole bunch of truly top notch actors who stroll about doing a lot of killing because there's some chaps bootlegging liquor who shouldn't be! That'll be Forrest, Howard and Jack - they're in big trouble pretty much from start to finish, because some posh git off the Titanic really, quite desperately, wants to shoot them in the face - this man is Special Agent Charlie Rakes, and he's had a terrible temper ever since someone stole the middle of his hair.

Review: "Oh shit!" It's Total Recall!

 Warning: Some very real, very true spoilers included, no lie. 

Total Recall is one of those films that thinks it's totally cool, dude, but isn't - *cough*Battleship*cough* - it's a lens flare fest of giant proportions, a relentless bombardment of CGI and cringe worthy dialogue. No matter how many ladies' boobs it cheekily shoves in your face, it's impossible to see past the fact it's got a few more than three flaws.