January 2012
2 posts
The Artist (2011)
First Hugo, and now The Artist—films about films, for people who love films, huzzah! Not that either of these movies is…inaccessible to a “regular” audience, but a little bit of knowledge allows one to appreciate the in-jokes, homages, references, what-have-you (of course, the factual inaccuracies also stand out more sharply as well, but that’s a burden we’ll...
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy the new version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and not necessarily because the film itself wouldn’t be entertaining. Having seen and thoroughly enjoyed the three original films (and read all three novels), I wondered if I’d constantly be making conscious and/or subconscious comparisons as I watched David Fincher’s take on the same...
December 2011
7 posts
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows can be “read” in various ways, but overall it’s an entertaining action film, if occasionally annoying due to a directorial style which verges on the self-indulgent and incoherent.
As is my wont, I missed the first Guy Ritchie-Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes adaptation, so this particular incarnation of the famed detective is new to me....
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)
Once again, I’ve arrived late to a film series. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is the only one of the four MI movies I’ve seen, and while it’s a satisfactory action film—albeit technologically over-inflated to provide the spectacle that current audiences seem to demand—I don’t believe I missed any narrative nuances by not having watched the...
Carnage (2011)
I don’t want to mock those who’d appreciate Carnage, Roman Polanski’s latest film, because I can be counted among that number. *loosens collar, Rodney Dangerfield-style* But the sort of people who will enjoy Carnage are the sort of people who are characters in Carnage. Middle- and upper-middle-class, educated, glib, politically-correct, self-satisfied, pretentious, egocentric,...
Hugo (2011)
Hugo is a film about films, though that’s not all it is. Martin Scorsese is one of a generation (or two) of film directors whose fondness for the medium is reflected in their work and life (among other notable examples: Peter Bogdanovich, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers). Scorsese not only makes his own movies, he helps keep alive the memory of older...
Old Mother Riley in Society (1940)
One of the truly unique characters in British cinema, Old Mother Riley was the creation of actor Arthur Lucan, who spent five decades on the stage and in films, dressed in women’s clothing. Although some consider Lucan/Old Mother Riley part of the “pantomime dame” tradition of female impersonation, there is never any overt hint of “camp” in the Riley...
The Guard (2011)
I missed this film’s “limited” theatrical release in the USA this summer, but now it’s out on DVD (internationally—the American disc arrives in January) so I was able to rectify that oversight. The Guard is very slightly oversold as a “buddy comedy” pairing Brendan Gleeson as a burly Irish garda and Don Cheadle as a buttoned-up FBI agent:...
November 2011
2 posts
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
Sometimes it’s good to be first, and sometimes it’s better to be second, learning from the errors of the pioneers. The Adventures of Tin Tin isn’t the first (or even the second) feature film made that utilises motion-capture technology throughout (as opposed to employing it for certain sequences or to give life to a particular character), but it’s technically and...
The Rum Diary (2011)
With Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, and the director of the cult film Withnail & I all involved, how could The Rum Diary be so…conventional? But, sadly, it is. This isn’t a boring or badly made film, but there’s nothing special about it. It’s a generic, “ugly Americans in the tropics” tale, with a wispy plot and thin characterisations.
Let’s...
October 2011
4 posts
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
Paranormal Activity 3 is the latest example of Mencken’s aphorism, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” How else can one explain the record-breaking box-office performance of this minimalist pre-prequel in which almost literally nothing happens—if you thought the first two PA films were light on scary action, trust...
Real Steel (2011)
I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Real Steel, given its “family friendly” imprimatur (since I’m such a tough, macho guy, grrr). A film about a boy and his estranged dad bonding? Meh. On the other hand, robot fights! Real Steel turned out to be a slick, superficial, predictable but mildly pleasant time-waster, albeit one riddled with logical and dramatic and...
Melancholia (2011)
To paraphrase Tolstoy, “each unhappy person is unhappy in their own way,” and Lars von Trier might well have used this as the opening epigraph for Melancholia, a visually sweeping and yet dramatically intimate tale of two sad sisters and the end of the world. I was almost afraid to watch von Trier’s latest effort after going through the grueling, visceral experience of...
Killer Elite (2011)
Killer Elite served as a cinematic-palate cleanser—fast, refreshing, adrenaline-inducing—between Drive and Melancholia, two more “serious” films on my viewing agenda. An intricately-twisted plot, performers for whom the descriptors “macho” and “hard-bitten” seem to have been coined, and heaping dollops of violent action have been blended into a...
September 2011
5 posts
Drive (2011)
Drive is a stylish, entertaining film that I should like more than I do (though I like it quite a lot). Neo-noir trappings, existential angst, an alienated hero, shots of Los Angeles streets at night, splendidly evil bad guys, visceral violence, a strong cast…this is exactly the sort of doomed-romantic, loner-hero crime film that I enjoy, so…what’s not to like? ...
Contagion (2011)
“Ensemble” films, with their large casts and numerous sub-plots, have been around for years, e.g., Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, Earthquake, Nashville, A Wedding, and even Traffic, which (not so coincidentally) was directed by the director of Contagion, Steven Soderbergh. Although the absence of a clearly-identified “protagonist” can be problematical—such films may...
Creature (2011)
Creature isn’t a bad film, really, but what is it doing on 1,500 cinema screens in the USA?! I have to concur with another reviewer, who marveled at this particular picture receiving a widespread theatrical release when other, far superior movies—by almost any objective standard—have not. If any movie ever screamed “send me direct-to-DVD,” it would be Creature....
Apollo 18 (2011)
Calling Apollo 18 a “found footage” film is a slight misnomer, since this isn’t really a Blair Witch Project, Rec or Paranormal Activity-style movie. The film is designed to visually resemble “real” (video) footage—shaky-cam, drop-outs, blurred scenes—but there is little or no formal attempt to make Apollo 18 seem reconstructed from such sources, as some...
Red State (2011)
There aren’t too many overtly political filmmakers working in mainstream cinema today. All films—to a greater or lesser extent, deliberately or otherwise —reflect the society within which they are created. But directors who repeatedly and openly explore political themes are relatively rare, if only because the financing for such movies isn’t easy to come by. Oliver...
August 2011
6 posts
Fright Night (2011)
After an aborted attempt to sit through Conan the Barbarian, I cut my losses and settled for the “other” remake of the week, Fright Night. I’d seen the original film years ago and had vaguely positive memories of it, but I approached the new version with a certain ambivalence, a definite “meh” attitude.
As it turns out, the new Fright Night is a decent...
Final Destination 5 (2011)
I’m not even sure why I watched this. I hadn’t seen any of the earlier Final Destination movies, I’m not a fan of the “body count film,” and I had plenty of other things to keep me occupied. Oh well, it wasn’t a complete waste of my time (I didn’t leave the cinema angry and frustrated), though in retrospect I’m certain I’d have...
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
I was mildly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive critical and popular response to this film, which was entertaining enough but hardly earth-shaking. A great deal has been made of the CGI animation/motion-capture technology which allowed Andy Serkis to “play” chief chimp Caesar: honestly, after a while you don’t even think about the fact that Caesar is not only...
Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
At times it’s difficult to tell the difference between a legitimate “high concept” idea and one which is merely intended to be deliberately ironic (or, as we might say, “hipster friendly”). Cowboys & Aliens joins Snakes on a Plane, Hobo with a Shotgun, Zombie Strippers, Alien vs. Predator, and a host of other films that expand a simple premise...
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
In my adolescence, I was a big comic book fan. I read them voraciously, collected them obsessively, corresponded with other fans earnestly, contributed to “fanzines” seriously, wrote and drew my own comics (poorly), and so forth (I even won a coveted Marvel “no prize” and had a letter published in an issue of Captain America, nyah nyah nyah!). I was a Marvel...
July 2011
5 posts
I Shall Return...
…with a review of Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). When? Ah, well, first I have to finish moving house, then I have to return to work, then I have to actually see the film. So let’s say…the upcoming weekend, more or less.
Honestly, the last time I moved was more than 20 years ago. Somehow, I magically accumulated a lot of additional books, tapes, DVDs, posters,...
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2...
The saga of the world’s favourite teen sorcerer comes to a satisfying conclusion in Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. It’s not an amazing, life-changing, tear-jerking, surprising conclusion (I mean, we all read the books, right?), but a fitting and faithful finale nonetheless.
One can only hope the creators resist the temptation to make Harry Potter: the Next...
Horrible Bosses (2011)
Should I be ashamed I saw Horrible Bosses this weekend? I mean, it’s not like I went to see Zookeeper or Bad Teacher, is it? Still, sometimes I feel I should be watching more “serious” cinema, or you won’t respect me any more. I shall try harder, I promise.
Horrible Bosses wasn’t a horrible movie (zing!), but it certainly could have been...
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
Heaven help me, I just saw Transformers: Dark of the Moon and…it wasn’t terrible. I think quite possibly there is something wrong with my brain… The Transformers films have to be right up there on the short list of “movies with the stupidest basic premise,” and I’d successfully avoided the two previous pictures in the series (and was too old for the original...
June 2011
3 posts
Green Lantern (2011)
Green Lantern wasn’t at the top of my “want to see” list over the past 2 weeks, so why—in the brief scraps of free time I had in an otherwise hectic fortnight—did I watch it? Because Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life, two films I am anxious to view, were not readily accessible, and Green Lantern was. For someone who had steadfastly avoided most comic...
X-Men: First Class (2011)
Though I (deliberately) missed all the previous X-Men films, X-Men: First Class is a prequel/origin story, and thus, those who (like myself) came late to the saga of the mutants don’t need to read up on the topic. There are a few in-jokes (a guest appearance by a surly Wolverine and a young Professor X saying “at least I didn’t lose my hair”—oh, just...
The Ward (2010)
I can’t write too much about John Carpenter’s latest film, The Ward, which has already been shown overseas and gets one of those “video-on-demand and in cinemas” releases in the USA soon (not being a marketing genius, I don’t understand this plan, but The Ward isn’t the first to follow this route so I suppose it works, somehow). Not that the film...
May 2011
6 posts
The Hangover Part II (2011)
I’d been anticipating The Hangover Part II, not because I felt the first movie was exceptionally good (it was…alright), but because I thought it might be refreshing to watch a comedy which didn’t conform to the politically-correct dictates of “good taste.” Unfortunately, while The Hangover Part II is, like its predecessor, moderately amusing and watchable, it...
Belphégor (1927) and Belphégor (2001)
During a temporary lull in the release of any new films of interest (to me) to cinemas, I reached back into my vast backlog of “films to watch some day” and extracted two French features from the mountainous pile of DVDs and videos in my apartment: Belphégor and Belphégor: le fantôme du Louvre. Although both are credited as adaptations of a novel by author Arthur Bernède,...
Water for Elephants (2011)
Allow me to apologise for characterising Water for Elephants as a “chick flick” (and thereby implying it was not apt for general audiences), but my confusion was understandable. The advertisements, the posters, the pre-release hype all play up the grand romance between Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon. Psh! This is a perfectly satisfactory, at times grim, period drama and its...
Priest (2011)
“Let’s remake John Ford’s The Searchers as a 3-D post-apocalyptic vampire/martial arts action-horror movie!” If that was your “high concept” idea, I hate to be the one to break the news, but…it’s been done. Priest is allegedly based on a series of graphic novels, so I can’t say who originally had the “inspiration” for the plot of...
Thor (2011)
I fear I’m at risk of losing my hipster cred. Thor is a recent “mainstream” film I actually enjoyed, and following so soon after the fun Fast Five, I’m getting slightly worried. Where’s the irony, where’s the iconoclasm? Not that either movie changed my life, and neither movie stands a chance of being shown in one of my classes in the near future,...
Fast Five (2011)
I’ve been licensed to drive for nearly 40 years now and like most Americans of my generation, automobiles are an integral part of my life. I cannot imagine living without a private car, I relish the freedom and flexibility that automobile ownership conveys to a resident of this extremely large, not very public-transportation-friendly nation. Yet I’m not a “gear-head,” I...
April 2011
5 posts
The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
I thoroughly enjoy reading legal thrillers, those taut tales of trials and tribulations (but especially trials, heh). Oh, I also enjoy police procedurals, detective novels, techno-thrillers, historical novels, medical thrillers, mysteries, and so on and so forth, but while I’d never fantasize about being a forensic pathologist, I like to imagine I might have made a good trial lawyer. I...
Scream 4 (2011)
“Meta” is a term frequently used—by critics and characters in the film itself—to describe Scream 4, the latest “screamake” and “shriek-quel” in the series. In one scene, Gail Weathers says “How meta can you get?” Her husband Sheriff Dewey replies “How what-a can you get?” ”I don’t know, I heard them say...
Insidious (2011)
I had an opportunity to see a preview screening of Insidious a few weeks ago, but unfortunately was unable to attend. This was doubly painful because producer-writer Leigh Whannell and director James Wan were supposed to be there, and I’d have liked to ask a few questions. Such as: doesn’t anyone have any new ideas anymore? Did you enjoy Poltergeist, The Exorcist, The...
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
This one goes to eleven. Hobo With a Shotgun is the second feature film developed from the faux coming-attractions trailers in Grindhouse, and it’s a wildly over-the-top pastiche of 1970s-80s vigilante films, full of violence, gore, loud noises and unbridled evil grimaces.
Actually, referring to Hobo With a Shotgun as a pastiche of vigilante films is somewhat...
Source Code (2011)
Ten minutes or so into Source Code, I realised this was another “gimmick” movie. That is, a film constructed around a rigid, artificial premise—“it’s all shot by a security camera,” or “the protagonist is buried alive with a cell phone,” etc.—in this case, a series of variations of the “same” sequence, a la Groundhog...
March 2011
8 posts
Limitless (2011)
It’s not purely coincidence or good fortune that I enjoy most films I see: not being employed as a film reviewer, I only watch those movies which appeal to me in some fashion, and while I’ve chosen poorly at times, I generally don’t have major regrets. Limitless is a moderately entertaining thriller which rather carefully avoids any sort of philosophical musing: Inception...
Paul (2011) & Burke and Hare (2010)
I won’t say I’m exactly a Simon Pegg “fan,” having only seen (to date) four of his films—and half of those in the past 4 days—but I find him an amusing, multi-talented actor-writer who first came to international (and my) attention with Shaun of the Dead. Not entirely coincidentally, the last two films I’ve watched were two Pegg-pictures, Paul and Burke...
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Although it was the top-grossing film in the USA last week, Battle: Los Angeles hasn’t been received too kindly by critics. The film is well-made, technically, and in my opinion it redeemed itself to a certain extent with its last 20-odd action-packed minutes, but I have issues with it, formally and ideologically.
The script is an example of “fragmentary”...
Rango (2011)
I wondered how Rango would fare with contemporary audiences who have relatively little familiarity with Westerns (I also wondered about this in reference to True Grit, and while its performance on Oscar night wasn’t great, the box-office results should make the Coen Brothers happy): would they “get” it? Would the tropes still resonate? Apparently so, or perhaps a good film is...
