February | 2013 | the m0vie blog

Look! Jack Kirby’s Designs for Argo!

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Darren

I’m actually reasonably happy with Argo winning Best Picture. I’ve given up on the idea of the Academy Awards ever mirroring my own tastes, and Argo is a pretty great film from a director who is developing into a wonderful talent. And the awards last night spread the love around. It’s hard to hate a ceremony that can give Quentin Tarantino a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Django Unchained.

Anyway, in celebrating the success of Argo, how about a look at Jack Kirby’s original designs for the fictitious movie Lord of Light (which became Argo)? Kirby was a comic book legend, who created The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, Captain America, Thor and countless other iconic comic characters. In the seventies, Kirby had an ever heavier science-fiction bint, creating his wonderful Fourth World and The Eternals and O.M.A.C. As part of the operation to rescue the escaped diplomats, Kirby designed these storyboards for the movie, which actually hit upon several of the author and artist’s favourite themes – including advanced god-like beings and the merging of the rational with the mystical.

Check out his sketches below. Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Academy Award for Best Picture, Argo, arts, awards, ben affleck, captain america, django unchained, fantastic four, JackKirby, Michelle Obama, Movies, quentin tarantino, x-men | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Blood Rising

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013. It was the closing gala.

It is sometimes quite tough to review documentaries. It’s tempting to confuse a worthy cause with a worthy film. Blood Rising is certainly about a worthy cause. It explores the “femicides” that have been occuring in Juárez, Mexico since the nineties (if not earlier). Women are kidnapped, raped and murdered – and the local authorities have done next-to-nothing to help stem the tide of abuse. Those who dare speak up have been hounded out of the area, with some advocates even continuing the cause “in exile.” It is a very compelling and a very worthy cause, and one that deserves as much attention as it can garner.

However, even factoring in the very worthy cause and the fact that its heart is in the right place, Blood Rising feels like a rather ill-judged piece of cinema.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Chihuahua, Ciudad Juárez, Documentary film, El Paso Texas, Felipe Calderón, jameson dublin international film festival, Juarez, Maguire, Mark McLoughlin, Mexico, Movie, murder, Spanish, States, United States | 3 Comments »

Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen (Review)

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

Revenge of the Cybermen originally aired in 1975.

Then what is it? You’ve no home planet, no influence, nothing. You’re just a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers skulking about the galaxy in an ancient spaceship.

– the Doctor pretty much sums it up

To be fair, the title should the first clue that something is not quite right here.

Tom Baker’s first season of Doctor Who contains two genuine classics in the form of Genesis of the Daleks and The Ark in Space, along with the quite good Sontaran Experiment, but it was bookended by two absolute clunkers. Indeed, Revenge of the Cybermen and Robot both feel like holdovers from the Barry Letts era of the show, and they’d both probably seem a whole lot more entertaining as vehicles for Jon Pertwee rather than Tom Baker.

Sadly, we’ve got what we’ve got, so let’s just try to work through this.

Sadly it’s A bomb, not THE bomb…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Ark in Space, bbc, BBC Archives, Cyberman, Cybermat, cybermen, Dalek, doctor, doctor who, DVD, Jon Pertwee, List of Doctor Who planets, Revenge Of The Cybermen, Tenth Planet, Time Lord, Tomb Of The Cybermen | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Welcome to the Punch

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013.

Welcome to the Punch is a weird best, a sort of a hybrid that runs on a engine built of mismatched parts. It’s very clearly a distinctly British film. the presence of Mark Strong and James McAvoy attests to that, let alone the supporting cast composed of people like Daniel Mays, Jason Flemyng, Davide Morrissey, Peter Mullen and Andrea Riseborough. However, it’s constructed in the style of an American action movie, with lots of guns, explosions and chases. It’s a very strange cocktail, and Welcome to the Punch suffers because it doesn’t blend the strength of both schools of thrillers. It feels rather clumsily, and rather hastily, thrown together without any real thought as to what the final composition might turn out like.

Top gun…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Andrea Riseborough, Daniel Mays, Eran Creevy, film, james mcavoy, Jason Flemyng, mark strong, Movie, non-review review, Peter Mullen, Punch, review, Steven Soderbergh, United States, Welcome to the Punch | Leave a comment »

Joss Whedon at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Darren

This event was part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013. It was hosted after a screening of Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing.

It has been a pretty great year for great guests at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. Robert Towne gave an interview and a workshop of screenwriting. Danny DeVito popped along to the Jameson Cult Film Club screening of L.A. Confidential. And Joss Whedon came to Dublin, with tickets to Much Ado About Nothing selling out so fast that they almost crashed the JDIFF servers. Whedon hung around afterwards for a rapid-fire questions-and-answers session, talking a bit about the film and his future plans, as well as his frequent artistic collaborators.

Image from JDIFF twitter feed.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: alexis denisof, Amy Acker, art, danny devito, dr. horrible's sing-along blog, Film festival, jameson dublin international film festival, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013, joss whedon, Movie, Much Ado About Nothing, Nathan Fillion, Robert Towne, Whedon | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Much Ado About Nothing

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013.

Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing has delightfully intimate roots. Apparently, the movie stems from occasions in various Whedon households where he would host “Shakespeare Sundays”, with friends and family reading through classic plays in a very cosy environment. Much Ado About Nothing represents an extension of that intimacy. It’s literally filmed in Whedon’s own home, using money saved for his and his wife’s twentieth anniversary. Whedon even wrote the music, and his extended family are heavily involved. Jed Whedon supervised the music and his sister-in-law Maurissa Tancharoen can be seen singing at points.

That’s the wonderful charm of Much Ado About Nothing, a movie that seems to have grown and developed out of a genuinely personal creative space, a project deeply personal and intimate to Whedon, filmed while he was editing one of the biggest movies of all time. In a way, Much Ado About Nothing feels like the most talented and highest quality student film ever produced.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alexis denisof, Amy Acker, Dogberry, film, Hero, Jed Whedon, Jonathan Cake, joss whedon, los angeles, Maggie Siff, Maurissa Tancharoen, Movie, Much Ado About Nothing, non-review review, review, shakespeare, Sunday, Theatre, Whedon, William Shakespeare | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Stoker

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013.

Stoker is, without spoiling anything, essentially a vampire movie without a vampire. It’s a psychological thriller with a decidedly charged sexual undercurrent. It’s also a story of the things we keep secret, the dangers of blood and unwholesome desires. Park Chan-wook does an excellent job adapting Wentworth Miller’s screenplay for film, and the result is a strange and macabre beauty, a film that is occasionally a little too ethereal for its own good, but remains compelling and uncomfortable viewing.

Shear terror…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: dracula, film, india, matthew goode, Mia Wasikowska, Movie, nicole kidman, non-review review, Park Chan, Park Chan-wook, review, Stoker, vampire, Wentworth Miller | 2 Comments »

Jameson Cult Film Club: L.A. Confidential & A Talk With Danny DeVito (JDIFF 2013)

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Darren

This event was held as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013.

The Jameson Cult Film Club really is a film lover’s paradise, an excuse for the celebration of classic cinema in a unique environment that tries to bring classic movie moments to life – whether bringing the gospel sermon from The Blues Brothers to life, or having the face-huggers from Alien drop into the audience to the satisfying sound of screams. Launched two years ago at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, the club celebrates its birthday by hosting a very special guest at a celebration of one of their best films. Danny DeVito is this year’s guest of honour at the festival – hosting screenings of the superb The War of the Roses and Throw Mama From the Train. As such, holding a celebratory screening of L.A. Confidential was really the perfect fit for a cult film club event.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blues Brothers, danny devito, DeVito, jameson cult film club, jameson dublin international film festival, LA Confidential, los angeles, Michael Douglas, Movie, Throw Momma From the Train, War of the Roses | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Blancanieves

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013.

Blancanieves feels like either a film that has its finger firmly on the pop culture zeitgeist, or the victim of the worst timing. It appears less than a year after The Artist won the Best Picture Oscar, becoming a massive critical and popular success. Given the relative dearth of high-profile silent black-and-white films, Blancanieves is somewhat trapped within that shadow. More than that, though, it emerges following a year that demonstrated popular culture’s fixation on the Snow White story. 2012 saw the release of both Mirror Mirror and Snow White & The Huntsman, both reimaginings of the classic tale. Blancanieves is, for its own part, an adaptation of the fairy tale, and it seems like the story was weighing on the popular imagination.

In any other context, Blancanieves would seem like a breath of fresh air. An affectionate homage to the classic era silent cinema, retelling the Snow White story in an unfamiliar setting, there’s a lot to recommend it. Indeed, Blancanieves is easily the best Snow White adaptation of the past year. Unfortunately, it suffers because it’s not quite as charming, witty and well-constructed as The Artist.

Dark materials…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Aki Kaurismäki, art, Blancanieves, Film festival, jameson dublin international film festival, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013, Maribel Verdú, Mel Brooks, Movie, Pablo Berger, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Ryan Gosling, silent film, snow white, spain, United States | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Look of Love

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013.

Paul Raymond (or “Paul Ray-monde!” as he introduces himself in flashback) is a pretty compelling character. The so-called “king of Soho”, Raymond was at one point the wealthiest man in Britain, owning an empire built on the back of gentlemen’s clubs, pornography and property. Michael Winterbottom’s exploration of Raymond’s life and times is a fascinating exploration of a very contradictory figure. On one hand, with his sharp suits and dignified dialogue with the press, Raymond presented himself as something approaching a gentlemen. He owned a nice house, his children partook of “all the right activities” and he was even fond of quoting Oscar Wilde. On the other hand, his empire was founded and built on an idea that was so simplistic it would be condescending if it wasn’t so successful: Raymond acquired his wealth through simple acknowledgement of the fact that people will pay to look at naked women.