Phil Jeng Kane

Phil has written for magazines, corporate videos, online ads, and even an app. He writes with one eye on the future, one eye on the past and a third eye on the Lotto numbers. His social bits are here.  

6

Critic

Red Dog: True Blue Review

In 2011, the film RED DOG was released in Australia to good reviews and box office success. It told of an ownerless dog, a kelpie cross, who was beloved by the people of Western Australia’s Pilbara region. Based on the true story of a dog who was known to wander vast distances in the 1970s, Red Dog became something of a legend. Pilbara dwellers and travellers would try to piece together where Red ...

9

Critic

Arrival Review

Twelve enormous spacecraft arrive at a dozen different locations around planet Earth. Governments do not know who is inside, nor what mission the ships are fulfilling.  Scientists and the military are sent to get answers from these giant craft. The vessels are nicknamed “shells” because at first glance, they seem egg-shaped.  Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams), an eminent linguist, joins a theoretical ph...

6

Critic

The Neon Demon Review

Jesse (Elle Fanning) is recently arrived in Los Angeles. She is sixteen-years-old and aspires to be a model. Her agent Roberta (Christina Hendricks) advises her to say she is nineteen in order to work. Roberta arranges a test with an A-list fashion photographer and from there, Jesse’s star begins to rise. THE NEON DEMON is Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film. He has been making feat...

8

Critic

Hacksaw Ridge Review

Desmond Doss and his brother are raised in rural Virginia. When the Second World War begins, both the Doss boys enlist, much to the chagrin of their father (Hugo Weaving). He fought in the First World War and lost all his close friends. It damaged him psychologically which drove him to drink and violence. Desmond (Andrew Garfield) has very different ideas from his father. Raised as a Christian by ...

8

Critic

Hell or High Water Review

Toby Howard and Tanner Howard are two down-on-their-luck brothers living in West Texas. They were born into poverty and recently their mother died, leaving them a ranch and debts. Tony (Chris Pine) is out of work. Tanner (Ben Foster) has been out of prison for almost a year and is looking for some excitement. The pair have taken to robbing branches of the Texas Midlands Bank. The raids are quick a...

8

Critic

Doctor Strange Review

Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a gifted neurosurgeon who is involved in a serious car accident that damages both his hands. Unable to work as a result of his injuries, he researches the cutting edge of medicine for a treatment. When he exhausts these possibilities, he is led to Katmandu; he has heard rumours about a place where the powers of the mind can be used to overcome physical dam...

7

Critic

Keeping Up with the Joneses Review

Jeff and Karen Gaffney live in a lovely middle-class Atlanta suburb. Their two sons have just left for summer camp and for the first time in more than a decade, the couple are alone; having time to concentrate on their own needs, confirms that their life has become a dull routine of television and vanilla-sex date nights. Jeff (Zach Galifianakis) works in Human Resources, for a large engineering f...

7

Critic

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Sixteen-year-old Jacob Portman (Asa Butterfield) travels to a Welsh island called Cairnholm in the aftermath of his grandfather Abe’s death. The two were close. Jacob chooses the island because it is the setting of the fantastic tales Abe told his grandson. The tales focused on a home for peculiar children run by a Miss Peregrine. The children have talents and abilities far greater than those of m...

6

Critic

The Magnificent Seven Review

The farming community of Rose Creek is under siege. It 1879, we’re in the Old West and industrialist scumbag Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) has sent his men to intimidate the gentle people of Rose Creek, so he can buy their land cheaply and strip mine it. These bad men confront the townspeople in church. In the violence that follows, they kill Matthew Cullen (Matt Bomer) one of the few farmer...

8

Critic

Snowden Review

American system administrator and computer professional Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is contracted to the National Security Agency to work in an NSA facility in Hawaii. While there, he learns how the security agency is surveilling US citizens’ communications without their knowledge and without warrants issued from the judiciary. He decides the American people need to know the U.S. Governm...

5

Critic

Spin Out Review

Billy (Xavier Samuel) and Lucy (Morgan Griifn) are close friends who have grown up together in a small country town. They are a pair of ute muster champs. One day, Billy pulls a particularly hare-brained stunt and as a result, Lucy decides it’s time to break up the team and head for Sydney. This is the last thing Billy wants, but since he and Lucy have a “will-they-won’t-they” relationship, he nee...

7

Critic

Sully Review

On January 15th 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport. In less three minutes, the plane hit a flock of geese, resulting in multiple birdstrikes on the engines, which ceased to function. The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger and his first officer Jeffrey Skiles, managed to glide the Airbus A320 onto the freezing Hudson River for a textbook water landing. Passengers and crew exited ...