Aaron Yap

Occupying the same space as other laughable, misguided Hollywood attempts at “timely”, “technologically relevant” cyber-thrillers like The Net and Firewall, Robert Luketic’s Paranoia answers the question nobody was asking: what if the director of Legally Blonde remade The Conversation? Just as generic and bland as its title would imply, this unexciting corporate espionage thriller plods along with exposition-clogged, techno-babble dialogue and standard issue […]

“Elysium’s gonna be the one”, I said, in hopeful anticipation that Neill Blomkamp’s second feature would turn things around for the Modern Blockbuster, which in the last few months, has given us plenty of reasons to lament its current state. Whether it’s all the gloomy industry talk of a potential “implosion” in Hollywood, or the […]

Fans of David Cronenberg regularly bemoan the director’s shift away from his weirder, wilder work of yore, but as a consolation, some comfort can still be found in recent films such as Splice, Beyond the Black Rainbow and Antiviral (directed by his son Brandon) – all which are, in one way or another, indebted to the clinical aesthetics and bio-horror […]

Aaron Yap’s dusting off of seldom seen back catalogue films continues… This time around he watches a coming-of-age Western from the director of Fantastic Voyage; the amazingly-titled Cocaine: One Man’s Poison (boasting a cameo from Arrested Development’s Jeffrey Tambor as a depressed, toupee-wearing dentist junkie!) and an old school Hitchcockian thriller starring a pre-fame James Caan […]

While Neil Jordan’s last film, 2009’s beguiling, wholly underrated sea-nymph tale Ondine, stopped short of marking a full-fledged return to the realm of fantastique where he’s notably contributed with The Company of Wolves and Interview with the Vampire, Byzantium is such a return – and his most satisfying and cohesive work in years. One might rush to compare its teenage […]

Where the zombie genre has grown somewhat stale, rarely having its limitations challenged nor re-imagined beyond rudimentary splatter, vampires arguably remain the most narratively flexible, most allegorically rich of all monsters. In anticipation of two brand new bloodsuckers heading our way soon – Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive and Neil Jordan’s Byzantium – here are five […]

British children’s lit writer Michael Morpurgo’s work was recently dusted off for big screen treatment in the form of War Horse, an adaptation bolstered by the heft of its accomplished craftsmanship: Steven Spielberg’s directorial mastery, no-cost-spared production values, a cast of familiar faces, Janusz Kaminski’s eye-poppingly majestic cinematography, all helping to distract the viewer from what […]

Aaron Yap dusts off another trio of seldom-seen titles from his pile of unwatched films in the latest edition of Shelf Life. This time around, allow yourselves to be lured in by the wonderfully titled Haunts, School of the Holy Beast and Closet Land – none of which may be about what you first think… […]

If you need a tonal gauge of where Michael McGowan’s Still Mine sits in the scheme of films about old couples withering away: it’s considerably sudsier than fellow Canadian Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, but a lot less grim than Michael Haneke’s Amour. Buoyed by a warmly rustic visual palette, gently lilting score and predictably feel-good ending, Still Mine basks in […]

The universe has spoken: M. Night Shyamalan has – pardon my French – crapped out another shitter. Furthering his decline from any form of credibility, his latest film, the sci-fi adventure After Earth (unseen as of writing but reviewed on Flicks here) has crashed and burned, tanking miserably at the US box office while getting […]

Kiwi-made, modern day Western shot in the valleys of North Canterbury, about a lone traveller’s dangerous and complex journey through the peculiar town of Netherwood. Stars Miriama Smith, Mick Innes and Owen Black. Read more and find movie times. Anchored by old-fashioned wild west tropes of land entitlement and ownership, cultural pride and legacy, estranged sons and […]

Based on the life of Swedish journalist Torgny Segerstedt, this black and white biopic follows Segerstedt’s one-man battle against Hitler, the Nazi ragime and his own country’s neutrality. Read more and find movie times. Veteran Swedish director Jan Troell’s biopic of his fellow countryman, Torgny Segerstedt (Jesper Christensen) – a newspaper editor in the ‘30s […]

In this edition of Shelf Life, Aaron Yap’s ongoing series of back catalogue film viewing, you’ll meet a crazy bomber, grumpy cop and serial rapist in The Police Connection; a pre-Mad Men ad exec beset by existential angst in The Arrangement; and young punkers Diane Lane and Laura Dern as The Fabulous Stains in Ladies […]

Sixth gear of the crazy popular action franchise. Stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Walker, Luke Evans, Tyrese Gibson, Gina Carano and Michelle Rodriguez, coming back from the dead. Read more and find movie times. When Fast and Furious 6 isn’t very fast and furious — i.e. when the film grinds to a halt from thudding exposition, groan-inducing […]

In this Israeli political drama the leader of an elite anti-terrorist unit clashes with a group of young radicals. Writer/director Nadav Lapid explores the violence between Israelis, the different sorts of tribalism, and the camaraderie amongst both police officers and gun-toting youths plotting class warfare. Read more and find movie times. The pointed title of writer/director Nadav Lapid’s debut Policeman might […]

I feel like I’m being too unreasonably excited about Fast and Furious 6 coming out in a couple of weeks to be devoting an entire blog to “cool car movies”, but anyhow here I am, writing about some cool car movies in anticipation of Fast and Furious 6. A few things to keep in mind: […]

Based on the 2008 novel, in turn inspired by To Kill A Mockingbird, this British coming-of-age drama stars Tim Roth as the father of 11-year-old Skunk, a girl who witnesses her neighbour viciously beating one of her few friends. Read more and find movie times. Rufus Norris’ debut feature Broken sits uncomfortably between two schools of Brit filmmaking: […]