Cinema Effect

Let us journey 200 hundred years into the future in 1997 sci-fi adventure film, The Fifth Element. When the "perfect being" (aka Milla Jovovich) arrives on Earth, only she can stop a talking evil planet from colliding with our planet!! Starring many famous faces such as Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, and Chris Rock, the film portrays its quite cheerful and colourful perception of the future...

Apocalypse Now is commonly regarded as one of the great films ever made. It is our feeling that such a bold claim cannot be confirmed until the almighty Cinema Effect podcast has watched it for review. Well we're happy to provide our stamp of approval, because Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 war picture is spectacular. A portrayal of the Vietnam war which is equally cruel, chaotic and absurd....

This is The Outfit, a 2022 film in which Mark Rylance plays a quiet and professional British bloke trying to run his suit business in 1950's Chicago. But he must do so while navigating a complicated situation with the mobsters who use his store as a hideout. With quite a few twists and turns, the story held our attention for its entire runtime. But the question of whether or not Rylance's...

The Indiana Jones adventure rolls on, and this month we're reviewing perhaps the most unique and tonally dark film in the franchise, The Temple of Doom. Released in 1984, on paper this may seem like an expected sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well first of all it's actually a prequel (who knew!). And the story happens to contain some pretty frightening stuff like torture, mind control,...

This week we're checking out an earlier film from an unknown filmmaker by the name of Quentin Tarantino. Jackie Brown stars Pam Grier as the titular character, a flight attendant caught in the middle of the criminal dealings of a weapon's dealer, and the ATF investigation aimed at taking him down. But when she spies an opportunity to take all of his money for herself, it's too perfect...

Another milestone has been reached! Welcome to the 150th edition of the Cinema Effect podcast. To mark the occasion we decided to once again meet up to record in-person, actually give YouTube viewers something to look at with some "high production" video content, and of course review a beloved film of the last decade. This is the first time we've covered a film by Damien Chazelle on...

Who would want to watch a movie about the genesis of Facebook, some may ask? Well everyone should, because David Fincher's The Social Network is pretty damn good. A fast-paced and exciting retelling of events with compelling conflicts and often frantic dialogue makes a film you can't look away from for its entire two hour runtime. Let's review all the players involved in the story, and...

Set 100 years in the future, Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt as Roy McBride. An accomplished astronaut who must travel to Neptune to find his missing father (played by Tommy Lee Jones), conquer his daddy issues, and save humanity all at once. No small task. Considering the title translates to 'To The Stars', it's interesting how the film's story is in many ways critical of an obsession wi...

A new franchise adventure begins! Each month we'll be reviewing every film in the Indiana Jones saga leading up to the release of the fifth (and hopefully final) entry later this year. So naturally, we kick things off where it all began with the world's introduction to the iconic character created by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, in 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. As I'm sure...

We are excited to present our unabridged review for HBO's adaptation of The Last Of Us. The story of Joel and Ellie traversing a post apocalyptic U.S. is one that resonates with many millions of players after first experiencing Naughty Dog's original PlayStation game. It's pretty cool to see this narrative, with such strong characters and writing, reach a huge audience ten years later....

Behold what is surely the longest and most thought provoking analysis of Cocaine Bear on the World Wide Web. In an effort to replicate the stupid chaotic nature of the film, we invited a couple of lucky Cinema Effect super fans on to the show for an episode I feel the need to apologise for in advance. And if you care to stick around past the review, you may enjoy our mostly underwhelming life stor...

Obviously we here at Cinema Effect love the films of Denis Villeneuve. At this point we've reviewed the majority of the director's Hollywood productions on the show! So we now clearly have great expertise in analysing his work. This week his movie in question is Arrival, a modern look at what the sudden appearance of alien spacecraft on Earth may look like, along with the impact the event could ha...

Netflix Animation presents The Sea Beast. An original animated feature set in a world where crews of hunters man pirate ships aimed at killing the wild and gargantuan creatures of the ocean. But of course, the moral implications of this are a bit dodgy. Even complete with a cute pet sidekick, this picture ticks all the boxes of a quality family movie. And who doesn’t want to listen to Karl Urban r...

Believe it or not we have now completed our trilogy of Magic Mike reviews after taking a trip to the cinema for undoubtedly the most anticipated film release of the year, Magic Mike's Last Dance! Channing Tatum is back, and this time he gets an invite from Salma Hayek to assemble a crew of the best dancers in the world and put on a revolutionary stage production in London (no points for guessing i...

Welcome to the lawless world of Lawless. The 2012 film takes place in prohibition era Virginia where three brothers run a bootlegging operation while avoiding the law, city gangs, and Guy Pearce's non-existent eyebrows. The problem is that it sounds significantly more interesting than it actually is. At least Tom Hardy was preparing for his role as Bane with his vocal performance, as well as beati...

Robert De Niro plays perhaps one of his most memorable and eccentric characters in Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy. Rupert Pupkin is a super annoying man obsessed with becoming a famous stand-up comic. So much so that he begins to stalk successful TV talk show host Jerry Langford (played marvellously by Jerry Lewis) in an attempt to get on his show. Join us as we discuss the film's exploratio...

Arguably the best movie franchise of all-time (you can tell Zac writes these) returns with its second outing. Magic Mike XXL sees Channing Tatum's titular character desperately wanting to get back on-stage and bust out his... dance moves, once again. So it only makes sense to get back with his crew of fellow male entertainers, and put on the biggest show of their lives. Featuring a much larger and...

Super Ultra Best Friend of the Show David Fincher returns. And this time we're checking out his 2011 iteration of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which happens to be a remake of the Swedish film, which itself is an adaptation of the acclaimed book series. But instead of receiving its logical sequels, this movie was left totally alone until the series received a disastrous reboot in 2018 based on...

No need to panic loyal listeners. The wait is over. The greatest film podcast of all-time has returned for 2023. And we kick things off with a trip to the local cinema for a viewing of the critically acclaimed picture, The Fabelmans. Steven Spielberg is back in the director's chair. And this time has the audacity to think people are interested in watching a movie about his own childhood. But god d...

Welcome to the season finale of Cinema Effect’s third year! As has become tradition, this week we present an evening ceremony with undisputedly the most prestigious awards in all of podcasting up for grabs. First of all, we breakdown the top films and TV shows of 2022, before coming to a definitive combined verdict. But that’s only a warm up for the awards categories which celebrate the very best...

See How They Run is a brand new whodunnit set in glorious 1950s London. The film brings the setting to life in vivid colour and an understated sense of humour, not dissimilar to the stylings you might expect from a Wes Anderson joint. Plus, every cast member involved gets to perform with a very charming accent! There's certainly a lot to like here. But perhaps it all doesn't quite amount to a cert...

Don't even bother trying to count the amount of abs in this picture, because it's time to talk about Magic Mike. The film features almost thirty minutes of pure cinema, in the form of its extended dance/strip sequences. Their pretty much the reason anyone would watch Magic Mike, in which all of the actors perform their own choreography in long takes. It's actually pretty dang impressive. But what...

From the director of the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy comes The Mexican. A film starring Brad Pitt in which he gives an incredibly goofy performance as a hapless dumbass named Jerry, who embarks on an adventure in Mexico in search of a famed pistol/MacGuffin. Julia Roberts plays his girlfriend who feels like she exists in a completely different movie within this movie. Her storyline w...

Tom Hanks returns to the show, and he brought the goods as Captain Phillips. Based on the true story of a cargo ship raided by Somali pirates in 2009, Hanks portrays a more subdued and raw character (who is of course a real person) than we've ever seen before. But then of course you have Paul Greengrass behind the camera doing his thing. The film is full of the director's trademark documentary sty...

From the mind of musician Kid Cudi comes Entergalactic, a stylish animated Netflix special. With its well realised cast of characters, gorgeous Spider-Verse-esque art, and Cudi's own dope music to boot, there's a lot to get behind with this one. Whether these positives can overcome a pretty straightforward story you've no doubt seen before, is the main point that separates us. But with its short r...