Commentary Fairy

The most attacked government building of 2013 continues its winning streak. This time, the Die Hard allusions even extend to the lead character's name (John [Mc]Cale) and costume design. But the good news is, the 17 years since Independence Day has clearly mellowed Roland Emmerich - now choosing to destroy his target piecemeal with bullets, rockets and arson rather than blow it to smithereens with...

2013 will always be remembered as the year the White House fell down twice, which is usually the sign that a building is not going to live to see another full year. The twin film is the less-ambiguously-titled White House Down (coming next). This film takes the more grim, violent approach of the two and plays like someone dusted off and loosely rewrote a rejected Die Hard sequel script that involv...

Chasing Liberty was chased to the cinemas in 2004 by First Daughter , which ironically came second, both historically and financially. But is it actually the better film? Is Michael Keaton the better president? Is Marc Blucas the better love interest? Does Katie Holmes look better in a fuzzy pink cowgirl hat or a $10,000 Vera Wang ballgown? All will be debated and the winner will be re-elected for...

We're continuing our series of twin films by spending four weeks at the White House - guests of the Biden administration. No that's not true. But we are doing four White-House-centric films. (No prizes for guessing the second set of twins.) One of the lesser-known and yet most egregious examples of twin filmage is the 2004 duo of Chasing Liberty and First Daughter , with almost identical plots inv...

From the $4-million-dollar pen of Shane "Every Day Is Christmas" Black comes the tale of an everyday mild-mannered homemaker with focal retrograde amnesia who goes to suicidally extreme lengths to prove the truism, "blondes have more fun". Dragged along for the ride is an indestructible singing detective, a daughter who thinks she's a tire iron and all the President's worst men, who will stop at n...

Where there's a Willis, there's a Wayan. In one instance at least. Despite being a film that would seemingly dredge up a stadium-ful of bad memories for Bruce Willis, Tony Scott, Joel Silver and Shane Black... it's actually not a bad time, thanks mostly to Shane Black's script, or at least, whatever remains of it after Willis and Silver tried to punch it up by breaking off its nasal bone into its...

Eddie Murphy has directed exactly one movie over the course of his career, and given this is Eddie Murphy we're talking about, it's guaranteed to be a mean-spirited, laugh-an-hour period crime comedy-drama, hold the comedy, in which he plays a heartless, homicidal sociopath. Wait- huh?? To be fair and true, we hadn't seen this film before and we definitely missed at least 50% of what happened, giv...

It's time to do some requests and what better film to start with than a space horror starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds and one teed-off extra-terrestrial protozoan! Whoops - that was a mix-up - this is actually the 1999 period prison comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence that plays like The Shawshank Redemption and Of Mice and Men had a baby and its skin tone fre...

Are you listening closely? Because this is important: If you haven't seen this film, I urge you to stop reading this (actually I should urge you to stop reading anything I've written in general) and see - nay, experience - it for yourself. COPIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD - you've been warned and we can't be held accountable. Now that's out of the way, it's time to empty a water-escape tankful of praise on...

2006 was the year of 19th century magician movies with obsessed-over tricks and big twists. As with many twin films, one is the recipient of much love and prestige , and the other is a comparative il- loser -ist . But anything to do with magic is worth checking out, if only to be tickled by that age-old question, how did they do that? How did they convince themselves that we would sympathise with...

Having missed out on the opportunity to cap off the Star Wars saga with a wretched disappointment of a final chapter (deferring that honour to JJ Abrams), Colin Trevorrow leapt like a slow-motion raptor on the chance to deliver the bads for the Jurassic saga, but instead delivered a film that's arguably no worse than the previous two Worlds. His methods? Excavating legacy cast; ignoring all logic...

Michael Bay's worst movie, according to Michael Bay (has he seen his other ones?), is Deep Impact 's worst nightmare: another movie about a space rock heading for Earth, releasing less than two months later, with a bigger budget and bigger stars. Fortunately, Armageddon takes an entirely different approach to the premise and turns it into an action movie about drilling, along the way providing the...

1998 was the year that Hollywood finally cottoned on to the idea that a comet colliding with Earth and wiping out all life was rich dramatic soil to plant its weeds in. Hence, Deep Impact and Armageddon , released mere weeks apart - possibly the quintessential example of the rival film productions phenomenon. One went the thoughtful, intelligent, realistic route, and the other has Steve Buscemi de...

[WHOOPS! Thought this was posted a week ago. Never trusting Patreon's scheduling feature again. Apologies to our millions of listeners.] Remember when a "real-life" TV show following a person who is famous simply for being famous was a novel concept? Nobody does - that's what makes this film such a curiosity, except in this instance Matthew McConaughey only injured the cat. Of course, it's unfair...

In 1998/1999, Hollywood first started thinking "Hey- what if an ordinary, everyday, real-life nobody with a boring job and no performing arts skills was the star of the show?" The first product this idea gave us was Peter Weir's 1998's psychological sci-fi satire masterpiece The Truman Show. Everything it gave us after that was an endless tide of turd, more commonly referred to as "Reality TV". An...

Dante's Peak 's competition for volcanic supremacy in the year 1997 was the dumbification-of-humanity-proof-titled Volcano , starring action hero Tommy Lee Jones and rivers of methylcellulose, the thickening agent used in fast-food milkshakes. Once known as the City of Angels, it will forever now be known as the City of Ancient Holes (From Which Lava Oozes Forth). Join us as we dance the pyroclast...

Rita and Joe continue chasing volcanoes after a lava bomb blows up their wife and talk over the 1997 volcano disaster flick, Dante's Peak.

If you have friends in your life but you're not currently receiving benefits from them, it's time to ask yourself, and them, why. Because according to this true story, starring JT and MK, the only difficulty in maintaining such a relationship will be limited to ensuring you never badmouth the other party whilst they're hiding in a magic box within earshot. No relationship. No emotions. Just mindle...

Why the F-buddies are we doing this film? Well, I hear you. Actually I don't - there's no one out there. But regardless, the reason is thus: We're doing a bunchload of "TWIN" films - no, not The Parent Trap or that Schwarzenegger/DeVito joint - I'm talking about the phenomenon of separate films that released the same year that somehow or other shared the exact same high-concept premise . In this c...

Episode IX! (pronounced icks!, as in "icks, get it off me!") The final chapter. The final episode. All roads led here. Well, except for the road that Rian Johnson masterfully constructed in the previous film. And the road that the Original Trilogy carved out that put a definite dead end on the lane belonging to the character of Palpatine. But all the other roads led here! It's time to close out th...

We missed a week because LIFE intervened (Toon Sandwich LIFE) but we're back in Force for the 🎊🥂60th Episode🍾🎉 of Commentary Fairy to delve into the least controversial film in the Star Wars canon. Haters gonna hate, but lovers gonna love, and according to the Beatles that's all you need. That, and green sea cow titty milk dribbling down your chin. Discussed in this episode: General Hugs, the...

In 2016, Disney took the Reyns of the Star Wars universe, at a price of 2 billion USD per rein, and awoke a force that had lain dormant since 1983 - widespread critical acclaim for a new Star Wars movie. Is it a carbonite-copy of the original Star Wars (1977)? Perhaps. Was that necessary to remind us why we fell in love with Star Wars in the first place after the digitally-rendered, green-screen p...

This Sith just got real. Anakin is akin to an anarchist. Kenobi can't cope-y. Padme's padded with meat. Palpatine's patina is palpably paler and infused with pure evil. Mace may suffer. Yoda is daft, yo. Chewie's back, ya. R2 and Threepio are too third-tier to pee on. Grievous, we can agree, is arse. Dooku is duped into being coup doo-doo. So ends the Prequel Trilogy - leglessly sliding backwards...

The greatest romance in the history of space fantasy... ...would have to be our Thor Love and Thunder Trailer Spoof. This film is more like How To Lose A Girl In 200+ Creepy Looks And Angry Entitlement And Pro-Dictatorship Declarations Except It Doesn't Work And She Falls Hard For You So Who Replaced Her Brain With Sand?!?? Well It Is Dry And Coarse And Gets Everywhere, Including Inside Padme's Sk...

1999 was a great year for movies. It was also the year of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Anticipation couldn't have been more feverish. Expectations couldn't have been higher. George Lucas couldn't have been richer. But like Jar Jar Binks stepping barefoot in a soft turd and exclaiming "ooh! Icky goo!", all hopes vanished like an eopie fart in a Tatooine sandstorm. Discussed in this ep...