Shameless Self Expression

A secret agency known as the Townsend Agency recruits young women to train as field agents named ‘Angels’. The agency’s head Bosley (Patrick Stewart) is about to retire, replaced by a new Bosley (Elizabeth Banks). Angels Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and Jane (Ella Balinska) are on a new mission in Hamburg that unites them with tech programmer Elena (Naomi Scott) who tries to tell her sleazy boss (Nat Faxon) that the new ballyhooed energy device has dangerous side-effects. Said sleazy boss (he’s middle management) doesn’t give a shit, and when Elena tries to blow the whistle, a creepy assassin (Jonathan Tucker) attempts to rub her out. That’s when she’s saved by Sabina and Jane. Now the trio have to team up in order to stop the device as a weapon on the black market. Djimon Hounsou plays another Bosley, Chris Pang plays an Asian-Australian crim who thinks he’s hot shit, and Sam Claflin plays the dude-bro tech company head.   The world didn’t need another “Charlie’s Angels” film, he...

Supposedly set in the late 70s, John Travolta stars as a washed-up California P.I. and former high school football hero summoned to his hometown in Texas to solve a missing person’s case, whilst also revisiting his past. The latter includes stopping in on his ex (Famke Janssen) and her daughter (Ella Bleu Travolta). When someone turns up dead, Travolta ends up forgetting about the missing old lady and decides to hunt the killer instead. Let’s just say he has a personal interest in the case. Morgan Freeman plays the local bigwig, a powerful and respected club/casino owner (also known to Travolta from way back), who was the chief financial competitor to Janssen’s late husband, an oil baron. A sweaty Brendan Fraser turns up as the oddball doctor in charge of the local sanitarium, who insists the old lady is currently undergoing special treatment. Robert Patrick is seemingly the only lawman in all of Galveston, though Freeman wields all the real power. Peter Stormare turns up as a weirdo m...

Loosely based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Valley of Fear , Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Lee) and Dr. Watson (Thorley Walters) are convinced that the dastardly criminal Moriarty (Hans Söhnker) is up to no good, stealing a priceless necklace supposedly worn by Cleopatra. Scotland Yard however, are more annoyed with Holmes’ apparent grudge/bias against the master criminal genius, whom they see as a respectable member of society. Undeterred, the world’s greatest detective and his assistant set about trying to prove their suspicions.   Christopher Lee managed to play several different characters in the filmed versions of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. He was a perfectly dashing, gentlemanly Sir Henry Baskerville to Peter Cushing’s Sherlock in Hammer’s version of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” , and also played a very serious Mycroft Holmes in Billy Wilder’s underrated “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” . Less-known is that he also played Sherlock Holmes himself at leas...

The eccentric idiot pet detective Ace Ventura (Jim Carrey, who may or may not have been ill during filming) is back. After a failed rescue of a raccoon stuck on a mountain, a distraught Ace joins a Tibetan monastery to find himself again. A visit from a missionary (Ian McNeice) leads Ace back to being a pet detective, this time in search of a sacred white bat belonging to a particular African tribe. Simon Callow plays a snooty consul and avid trophy hunter, Sophie Okonedo plays a tribeswoman, the late Bob Gunton plays a safari park owner, and Kiwi Bruce Spence plays a supposedly Australian henchman/hunter.   The original “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” didn’t hold up to recent revisiting for me, but to be frank I loathed this 1995 follow-up from writer-director Steve Oedekerk ( “Nothing to Lose” , “Kung Pow: Enter the Fist” ) when it first came out. I vividly remember seeing the trailer far too many times in the seemingly arduously drawn-out build-up to its release and recognisin...