Pomona Rewind

HAPPY GILMORE If you Google search 'Happy Gilmore,' one of the first questions that appears is: what's the point of 'Happy Gilmore'? It's a good question. Watching it 29 years on from it's original release, I'm not quite sure. Yes, it's supposed to be a comedy vehicle for 'Saturday Night Live' alum Adam Sandler . But watching it in the UK and Ireland on Netflix ahead of its hugely hyped sequel on the streaming service, it feels hugely overrated. Sandler is, of course, Happy Gilmore, a working class lad who aspires to be a NHL hockey player whose love of the game was instilled by his father. Unfortunately, his dad, played by Louis  O'Donoghue, dies when Happy is a kid in a freak spectator accident at a hockey game and he is sent to live with his grandma. Fortunately, Frances Bay's Grandma Gilmore is a lovely woman, greeting his younger self, played by Donnie MacMillan, dressed like Gene Simmons from Kiss. In adulthood, Happy struggles...

  CIVIL WAR Suicide bombers detonating devices and devastating a New York street. Dead bodies hanging from underpasses. Soldiers and armoured vehicles engaged in a fierce gun battle to storm the White House. These are some of the images that burn into your brain during Alex Garland's 'Civil War'. But are they really that far fetched given the polarisation of US politics right now? 'Civil War' tells the story of journalists covering a conflict that has erupted between an alliance of troops from California and Texas and a US Army whose Commander In Chief is Nick Offerman's unnamed three term President. Covering the conflict are Kirsten Dundst's celebrated photojournalist Lee Smith and Wagner Moura's Reuters reporter Joel who we first see in Brooklyn observing disturbances between civilians and troops. As the civilians start to scuffle with the soldiers, Lee spots Callie Spaeny's wet behind the ears photojournalist Jessie Cullen being struck during the ...