Posted on September 30, 2009 by Darren
A look back at a wild September, with some of our more notable articles.
We celebrated the end of this year’s summer season, and it was meh. But seriously, are movies getting too long?
An article looking at whether bloggers are/aren’t/could ever be critics made the front page of WordPress, which brought lots of traffic and, more importantly, a lot of discussion.
Another piece that got people talking was a discussion over the ending of the Usual Suspects wondering if we’re sure we saw what we saw.
And we lamented the passing of another month without and Batman news by looking at whether Two-Face or the Riddler should appear in the next film…
Filed under: Months in Review | Tagged: Months in Review, september | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 30, 2009 by Darren
I make no apologies, I love this movie. Though it might not always hit the perfect notes, it maintains Ben Stiller’s pitch-perfect ability to just throw tonnes of stuff at the wall and if even 30% of the jokes hit, you’re at least grinning for the film’s runtime. He also has a fantastic cast full of the talented and the one-note, all of whom are perfectly chosen for the roles that they play within Stiller’s war comedy. Sure, the film may lose focus a bit, and it has a fairly short attention span, but this means that Stiller isn’t afraid to pull away from a gag that isn’t working.
Jungle Fever
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: apocalypse now, ben stiller, comedy, films, hollywood, jack black, les gorssman, Movies, non-review review, review, robert downey, robert downey jnr., satire, tom cruise, tropic thunder | 1 Comment »
Posted on September 30, 2009 by Darren
I happened upon an interesting article which suggested that today’s blockbusters are far too long. It’s a notion which got me thinking – it’s easy to jump to those sort of conclusions based on the kind of summer we’ve had, but are movies really getting longer and is that a bad thing?
Even bigger and meaner than you could imagine...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: average runtime, cinema, film length, films, movie length, Movies, runtime, two hours | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 30, 2009 by Darren
I considered writing this little piece in a vacuum, leaving the issue the sparked it sitting like an elephant in the room – but there’s really no point avoiding it. I’ve been troubled watching Roman Polanski films ever since I read up and discovered why he had to direct The Ninth Gate from abroad. The knowledge that he had engaged in sexual acts with a thirteen year old girl has been very hard to disassociate from the man in viewing his filmography – oddly enough, it’s harder to disassociate than the grisly facts surrounding the brutal murder of Sharon Tate by the Manson family. I saw The Pianist and his rather lacklustre (Playboy financed) version of Macbeth before I found out about his flight to Europe and his seemingly eternal exile. I was unlucky enough to see Chinatown afterwards, and as great as the film was I couldn’t quite get over what Polanski had done. Am I being a little silly or is it really hard to view the work of film makers in a vacuum?
"Forget it, Jake, it's Polaski..."
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: behind the scenes, chinatown, external factors, films, in a vacuum, Movies, rape, roman polanski, statutory rape | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 29, 2009 by Darren
I am going to just come out and say this. I like Tom Cruise as an actor. I think he’s hugely talented and vastly underrated. I think he suffers from a subset of the Sean Penn Syndrome that affects Christian Bale – his wacky personal life tends to overshadow his on-screen roles, which is a damn shame, given the talent that’s been hinted at repeatedly throughout his career.
A pleasant cruise...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: actor, collateral, films, hollywood, Movies, publicity, rain man, tom cruise, tropic thunder | 4 Comments »
Posted on September 29, 2009 by Darren
Maybe there’s a reason I’ve got ghosts and ghouls on my mind despite the fact that Halloween is approaching and the first Nightmare on Elm Street trailer was just released. I happened to catch The Mummy playing on Sky movies on Sunday night and it was one of those rare films that the family just dropped everything and started watching, despite the fact we’ve seen it before. Ignoring the law of diminishing returns that affected the sequels, The Mummy is solid action-adventure-horror romp that stands equally well as a companion to Raiders of the Lost Ark as it does as a subconscious herald of the coming wave of remade creature features.
Oh, mummy!
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brendan fraiser, egypt, film, monster movies, Movies, non-review review, rachel weisz, review, stephen sommers, the mummy, universal horror movies, universal monster movies | 1 Comment »
Posted on September 29, 2009 by Darren
This is a movie that ends with a rendition of the classic Bowie pop number Let’s Dance, because it couldn’t fit it anywhere in its linear narrative amid all the time-specific pop and rock tunes. The movie has quite a bit in common with that most financially successful of songs from the Thin White Duke. It’s light, it’s breezy and it’s catchy, with just a hint of some extra darkness that is rarely found among its light and fluff compatriots. It’s also the work of an intensely talented artist (and, indeed, artists) who probably should be doing more innovative and important work, but we almost can’t blame them because it’s so much fun. Almost.
Quite a board walk...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: bill nighy, british cinema, comedy, emma thompson, kenneth branagh, Movie, music, nick frost, non-review review, philip seymour hoffman, pirate radio, radio, review, rhys ifans, richard curtis, rock, the boat that rocked | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 28, 2009 by Darren
Next month is October, which means Halloween, so I’ll be taking a closer look at the horror genre (both with reviews of movies and my own unique style of commentary), but the success of the new Paranormal Activity on a budget of less than $15,000 (and I thought District 9 was cheap) has got me wondering: why is it that low-key horrors are so scary?
There's been a lot of activity around Paranormal Activity this weekend...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: chillers, films, horror, horror movies, Movies, paranormal activity, scary movies, the blair witch project, thrillers | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 27, 2009 by Darren
Ah, the good old conspiracy thriller theory movie is alive and well, it would appear. For those not quite up-to-date on Hollywood’s fascination with sequels, remakes and adaptations, State of Play is a remake of the classic BBC miniseries of the same name. Following an old-fashioned investigative reporter as he attempts to investigate the death of a Congressman’s aide, he finds himself getting drawn closer and closer to a lion’s den of corruption and defense contractors. It’s a solid conspiracy movie elevated by superior performances that doesn’t really live up to its potential.
Russell Crowe attempts to explain the plot twists of State of Play to a confused Ben Affleck...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: ben affleck, conspiracy, defense contractors, films, helen mirren, jason bateman, jeff daniels, journalism, Kevin Macdonald, Movies, non-review review, rachel mcadams, review, robin wright penn, russell crowe, state of play | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 27, 2009 by Darren
Batman’s rogues gallery is a strange one. Thanks to the character’s absorption into popular culture (by the live action series, the cartoons, the movies), he has a fantastically strong and well-recognised selection of villains – to the point where people who haven’t picked up a comic book wonder whether The Riddler will be the villain in the next Batman film. He has tonnes of opponents who are easily recognised by the public and are wide and diverse, many that any other comic book character would kill for. However, once every few years the powers that be will attempt to introduce a new major villain into the character’s life – for example Grant Morrison populated his own run on the title with new enemies (and the Joker). Very occasionally these are succesful – Bane is a fairly well-known addition to the ensemble, despite only arriving about fifteen years ago, and Victor Zsasz remains the most recent bad guy to be featured in Nolan’s movies – but mostly these are failures – like Orca or KGBeast. Here Paul Dini is attempting to move the most recent major bat baddie from the latter category into the former. Does it work?
Eye see you...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman r.i.p., batman rip, batman: heart of hush, batman: the heart of hush, catwoman, comic book, detective comics, graphic novel, heart of hush, hush, paul dini, review, the heart of hush | 2 Comments »
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