June | 2012 | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Final Destination

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Darren

I am actually quite fond of the original Final Destination. Don’t get me wrong, it has its flaws (and some very fundamental ones at that) and the sequels drove the concept into the ground, but it actually has a fairly original premise for a teen horror movie. I’m fond of horror as a genre, and I’ll freely admit that I’m quite exhausted by the perpetual cycle of slasher movies or ghost stories or ghost story slasher movies. Instead of adhering rigidly to the conventions of the teen horror film, Final Destination feels like something of a breath of fresh air. It’s a well-constructed teen horror movie, even if it does fall into many of the same traps and issues.

Ali onboard…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Adolescence, Alex, art, Baby, birthday, Blankets and Bedding, children, Diaper, film, final destination, Glen Morgan, god, Horror film, John Denver, Movie, non-review review, review, Seann William Scott, Shopping, Slasher film, Toilet, Tony Todd, Transportation, United States, wes craven | 4 Comments »

Home of the Brave: Is Brave a Pixar Princess Movie?

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Darren

I have to admit, I’m having a hard time getting too excited about Brave. To be honest, the notion of an original Pixar movie should be a breath of fresh air after the incredibly disappointing Cars 2. The studio is, after all, responsible for quite a few modern classics – those rare cinematic treats that the entire family can sit down and enjoy together. However, despite my deep-biding affection for classics like Wall-E, Up, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles or any of the Toy Story films, I can’t seem to be too concerned about the approaching release of the studio’s latest animated effort. I can’t help but feel that – despite the fact it’s their first film that isn’t a sequel in quite some time – we’ve seen this all before.

Is Brave just a Pixar “princess” movie, the spiritual successor to the long line of Disney “princess” movies?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Brad Bird, Brave, Cars 2, disney, film, finding nemo, incredibles, Merida, pixar, Princess & The Frog, toy story, wall-e, Walt Disney Company, Wreck-It Ralph | 4 Comments »

Silent at the Peacock Theatre (Review)

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Darren

Fishamble’s Silent has already completely sold out its run at the Peacock Theatre. Of course, that shouldn’t be a massive surprise. Winning both the Fringe First and the Herald Angel awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year, the one-man show has been touring to great acclaim nationally and internationally. It’s a powerful, well-produced piece of theatre, with writer Pat Kinevane turning in a superb lead performance as the show’s narrator, a charming and engaging (and deeply troubled) homeless man named Tino McGoldrig. His mother was a fan of Rudolph Valentino, he explains, and “Rudolph” just wouldn’t cut it down in Cork. Touching, moving and excellently constructed, it’s an occasionally harrowing piece of theatre.

Yes. It is. Quite. (Photo by mariafalconer.co.uk)

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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: dublin, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Fringe, Glasgow, Kinevane, peacock theatre, Performing Arts, Rudolph Valentino, Samaritan, Theatre, Tino | 2 Comments »

On Second Thought: Alien Resurrection (Special Edition)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Prometheus in the United States this week, we’ll be taking a look at the other movies in the Alien franchise.

So this is Earth, huh?

This is Earth.

– Call and Ripley try not to sound too disappointed…

I am not the biggest fan of Alien: Resurrection. I think it is, to be frank, a mess of a film – the result of a director and a writer who seem a very poor fit for one another, with Jeunet’s macabre design aesthetic at odds with Whedon’s sardonic irony. It would take a fairly radical reworking of the film to solve that fair fundamental tonal dissonance… and the Special Edition is not that much of a reworking. Indeed, Jeunet himself has gone of record stating that his own definitive version the film was the original theatrical cut. He introduces the Special Edition on the superb anthology collection with that confession, “The special edition version you are about to watch is not the director’s cut, because the director’s cut is the version you watched in theatres in 1997.”

So it’s no surprise that while the Special Edition does add a bit more shading, nuance and complexity to the film, it doesn’t salvage it.

Not quite what the doctor ordered…

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Filed under: Movies, On Second Thought | Tagged: alien, alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Computer-generated imagery, david fincher, directors cut, Eiffel Tower, Ellen Ripley, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, ridley scott, Ripley, United States, Walmart | Leave a comment »

Avengers Disassembled: Iron Man – The Singularity (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Darren

And so I’ve finished my trek through the tie-ins to Avengers Disassembled. And it was surprisingly painful. Sure, Robert Kirkman’s Captain America at least made sense if you looked at it from the right angle, and Mike Oeming’s Thor was one of the best stories to feature the character, but the Invincible Iron Man and Captain America & Falcon tie-ins serve to illustrate just how lost some of Marvel’s top books were at the time. The Invincible Iron Man actually had two arcs tying into the big event, from two very different creative teams, perhaps illustrating that Marvel was aware of this fundamental dysfunction. Unfortunately, neither is especially impressive, and both feel like they are simply treading water, waiting for Avengers Disassembled to put the book out of its misery.

Things look Stark…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers: disassembled, captain america, Invincible Iron Man, iron man, joss whedon, MarvelUniverse, robert kirkman, thor, Tony, tony harris, warren ellis | 2 Comments »

Avengers Disassembled: Captain America & Falcon (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Darren

If any of the Avengers: Disassembled tie-ins make a case for the drastic shake-up that took place amid Marvel’s Avengers-themed titles in 2004, it’s probably Captain America & Falcon. By the time the tie-in to the event began, the book was only on its fifth issue, but it had already found time for the juvenile and shallow conspiracy-theory mongering that would make John Nay Rieber and Chuck Austen’s Captain America proud. Still stuck in a hamfisted attempt to tie into the post-9/11 zeitgeist, the book offers some of the worst examples of comic book storytelling at Marvel at a time when their Avengers line wasn’t particularly strong to begin with.

Not a smashing success…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers: disassembled, captain america, Christopher Priest, Chuck Austen, Daily Bugle, ed brubaker, Falcon, J. Jonah Jameson, United States | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Alien vs. Predator – Requiem

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Prometheus in the United States this week, we’ll be taking a look at the other movies in the Alien franchise.

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem is pretty close to indefensible. I’m not the biggest fan of the original Alien vs. Predator, but I’ll concede the film throws a few interesting ideas into a disappointingly generic and less-than-enthusiastic monster mash run-around. While the first film wasn’t original, it at least looked to acknowledge its hokeyness in places. In contrast, the sequel is just soul-destroyingly mundane, taking anything that had been unique or compelling or interesting about these two iconic movie monsters and rendering it all completely pointless as it devolves them to the equivalent of generic teenager slasher villains.

Death of a franchise…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alien, alien vs. predator, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Brothers Strause, Ellen Ripley, film, james cameron, Jason Voorhees, Jesus, Motion Picture Association of America film rating system, Movie, non-review review, Paul W.S. Anderson, predator, Prometheus, review, ridley scott | 13 Comments »

Avengers Disassembled: Thor (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Darren

Thor: Disassembled is easily the strongest solo arc to stem from the events in Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers Disassembled. It’s full of interesting and clever ideas about the nature of stories, and serves to wrap up Thor’s story fairly efficiently, leading into the big reshuffle of the Marvel Universe. Rather than merely treading water waiting for J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor, writer Mike Avon Oeming takes advantage of the unique set of circumstances before him to present that rarest type of superhero story: one with an ending.

Thunderbolts and lightening, very, very frighteningly…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Asgard, Avenger, brian michael bendis, captain america, dark knight returns, Fandral, green lantern, J. Michael Straczynski, Jane Foster, loki, MarvelUniverse, Mjolnir, spider man, thor, Volstagg | 1 Comment »

Django Unchained Trailer!

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Darren

Hey, it’s the awesome trailer for Django Unchained, which was one of my most anticipated movies of 2012… until Sony moved its UK and Irish release to 2013. Still, it looks pretty awesome. And I think it’s now officially my most anticipated movie of 2013.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: django unchained | 4 Comments »

On Second Thought: Aliens (Director’s Cut)

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Prometheus in the United States this week, we’ll be taking a look at the other movies in the Alien franchise.

It seems that James Cameron’s Director’s Cut of Aliens is the only alternate cut of an Alien film preferred by any of the directors. Ridley Scott has gone on record stating that he considers Alien: The Director’s Cut to be an “alternative” cut of the film intended for long-time fans. David Fincher has explained that the only way he’d produce a version of Alien³ that he’d be happy with was if he were to shoot it from scratch. Jean-Pierre Jeunet believes that the theatrical cut of Alien: Resurrection is his preferred version of the film. So it seems that Cameron is the only director who has been able to successfully reintegrate material to produce what he feels to be a definitive version of the film.

And, to be honest, I’d agree. Aliens: The Director’s Cut is probably the best example of how to enhance an already superb film through the addition of previously excised material.