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Yesterday, I was sitting in a restaurant, watching people walking by; some of them seemed happy, some content, most just caught up in the hustle and bustle of their everyday lives...looking at these people, I could immediately tell that they all had one thing in common: none of these people had just sat through 'Cats'. 'Cats' is the kind of movie you go see before having a colonoscopy to make the procedure seem like a trip to Disney Land in comparison. Sitting through this film was, and I'm not exaggerating here, the most painful movie-going experience of my life, more than that, it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. That time the horse kicked me, awesome after what I just sat through, all those bad Tinder dates, I'll marry any of them, attending my own mother's funeral not nearly as painful as sitting through this vile piece of cinema. Now, I'll be straight, the stage play 'Cats' has never been a show that spoke to me personally and I have only seen limited extracts from the show itself. Yet, I could appreciate it. The makeup, the choreography, the singing talents, the casting...even if it wasn't my personal taste, I was still able to appreciate the enormous talent behind all of it and sometimes respect for source material means more than truly enjoying it. And that is what this film adaptation lacked severely, there was no respect for the source material it was based on. 'Cats' is a production that never should have been adapted to film, it couldn't. It has to be seen live to appreciate the on-stage talent. What this film brought us is badly CGI'd characters, looking creepy as hell, doing choreography that has been toned down from the show it's based on, with a whole lot of A-list actors singing mostly out of tune. Seriously Hollywood, you made this same mistake with Les Miserables, just because an actor is a big name it does not mean he can sing and viewing it is cringe worthy. And that is what I felt for most the running time of this film, I was cringing, I felt uncomfortable, I was checking the time every 5-minutes, I just wanted this nonsensical. unpleasant, piece of trash to end so I could get out of there. And it took forever, the end of this movie felt like it was trolling me with at least 5-points where I thought the film was over, me jumping up and then it starts again - Cats, you are not freaking 'Lord of the Rings' and you do not get to do that! When it finally did, I walked out of the cinema in a daze, I was ready to dump my entire movie collection into the garbage and to never watch another movie again, I was angry, I was sad, but mostly I just felt empty. Empty knowing that there are people starving in Kraaifontein and I had just thrown money away on this film. I am going to be adding a list of charities below, please, think of them before you spend a dime of your money seeing 'Cats' because doing so is basically paying good money to give yourself brain tumours.

The Lion King (piece of **** remake) mini-review: It's like watching the Animal Channel with some horrendous voice actors improvising the original 'Lion King' script over it, with the addition of female empowerment, anti-bullying messages and some scenes that felt like they were lifted from 'A Game of Thrones'. Summary: this movie, this movie right here, this was more offensive than Jurassic World and I hope the filmmakers get herpes.

Horror movie fans are a lot like domestic abuse victims, no matter how bad the movies in a franchise get, somehow, we'll always still come back for more, case and point: the Halloween franchise. One would think that the abysmal Busta Rhymes sequel, followed by the, actually quite painful to watch, Rob Zombie reboot series, would have been enough to bury Michael Myers once and for all, but, instead, less than 10 years later, studios made an announcement that another Halloween film was in the works, John Carpenter would be involved and it would be a direct sequel to the 1978 original...hearing this, of course, fans reacted like they had just learned about the second coming...I know, because I was one of them. Playing off 40 years after the original (and 20 years after H20 - that can't be a coincidence), the movie once again stars Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising the role of Laurie Strode. Following the events of that one night, Laurie has basically become Sarah Connor from 'Terminator 2', training herself to become this absolute survivalist, teaching herself hand to hand combat, how to fire any conceivable type of fire arm, setting up her house with escape routes...basically, just dedicating her whole life to a second encounter with Michael Myers that only she believes is coming. She raised her daughter the same way, putting a great strain on their relationship, even more so now that her daughter has reached adulthood and has a teenage daughter of her own. Judy Greer stars as the daughter of Jamie Lee Curtis, and I have to admit, the relationship between these two characters, I found to be one of the most compelling things about this film, because, even though she treats her mother badly, we put ourselves in Judy Greer's shoes and we get it...both actresses, but Jamie Lee Curtis in particular, bring quite a bit of depth to their characters, we sympathise with both and their unique points of view and we want to see them reconciled; this was one elements to the film that truly worked. Meanwhile, in the other part of the story, Michael Myers, who has been locked up in a penitentiary for the last 40 years, is about to be transferred; two radio pod-casters are doing a story about him and the events that happened 40 years earlier, and wish to interview him, before the transfer. This sub-plot about the radio podcast, oddly enough, was another part of the film I found myself very invested in and I wish it could have gotten more focus; it offers some interesting theories about what may have caused Michael to become evil and opens the door to what could have been a completely different, and in my opinion, better movie. It all comes to an abrupt halt though, as, on the night of Michael's transfer, the bus crashes, Michael is able to escape, another killing spree starts...and the movie loses my interest. Some of you may recall, that in the original film, Michael Myers only murdered a hand full of people; this gave the movie time to really focus on those kills, build the suspense, give us time to get to know the victims and, overall, just make a bigger impact...in this film, Michael Myers has basically become Jason Voorhees, trying to fit in as many kills as humanly possible, before those end credits roll, and, at times, it just feels forced and unnecessary; that is my main problem with this movie, too much of it feels forced: there is this ridiculous sub-plot regarding Michael's new psychiatrist that will leave you scratching your head and wondering what, exactly, the point to that was; Will Patton, starring as the new Sheriff, gets a hell of a lot of screen time but it all really just ads up to nothing, there are also moments of comic relief thrown in at the worst possible times, and completely ruining some of the most suspenseful moments. The original movie, had very little humour in it, sure there was some earlier on when it was establishing the characters and giving them unique traits, therefore, it served a purpose...here it's just comic relief thrown in, because, apparently, in 2018, viewing audiences simply are no longer capable of watching horror movies without breathers, in-between. Now, I'm not saying that this movie does all the scary scenes wrong, there is a scene in a bathroom that's actually quite intense to watch and gets close to capturing that old Halloween feel, also a scene with him stalking a babysitter. Both these scenes are clever nods to earlier films, and that was something I very much did like about this movie, there are tons of these spread out throughout the movie, but each one of them with their own unique twist. A scene with Laurie's granddaughter sitting in a classroom and starring out the window, just like Laurie did in the original film, was, surprisingly, one of my favourite scenes...even if it only lasted a few seconds. All and all, this sequel really wasn't awful by any sense of the word, actually, there are some things about it that are quite great...Jamie Lee Curtis, the pod-casters, many of the earlier scenes...this movie had a lot of potential, and, in some ways, many actually, it's a worthy sequel, BUT when you have the balls to step into an arena, publicly announce that you are discrediting all the earlier sequels, that this will be the only sequel that matters: then you have to deliver, you have to make something that stands out, something that is better than all those earlier films, and, unfortunately, this movie was simply not able to pull that off...so, good movie, not great, but if you're a horror fan...we both know that you won't be able to resist seeing this film, and frankly, for a 21st century horror film, you can still do a hell of a lot worse.