August | 2013 | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: The Mortal Instruments – City of Bones

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Darren

The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones is just about wry enough and smart enough to launch itself snugly into the gap in the “young adult” movie market left by the end of franchises like Twilight or Harry Potter. This franchise-launcher, based on Cassandra Clare’s 2007 novel, is at its best when it’s self-aware, with young starlet Lilly Collins reacting with quiet bemusement to the surreal urban fantasy or Irish supporting actor Robert Sheehan picking holes in the plot.

It’s over-the-top and deliciously campy, but indulgently so. Refusing to merely bask in the clichés of urban fantasy, The Mortal Instruments practically revels in them. Subtext becomes supra-text, twists are shrewdly signposted in a way welcoming to genre aficionados and there’s an endearing sense of pulp to the whole thing. The movie only really suffers when it tries to take things entirely seriously, slowing down for an almost interminable second act and casting the so-wooden-he-should-probably-be-varnished Jamie Campbell Bower as the obligatory “mysterious hunky teenager.”

A cut above?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Cassandra Clare, City of Bones, Clary, george lucas, Harald Zwart, Jamie Campbell Bower, jared harris, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Joseph Campbell, Lily Collins, Mortal Instrument, Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Robert Sheehan, Young-adult fiction | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: One Direction – This is Us

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Darren

Let’s be honest here. As a brand, the success of One Direction has been phenomenal. In One Direction: This is Us, super producer Simon Cowell boasts about how it took him all of ten minutes to come up with the band, jamming five also-ran teenage X-Factor contestants into an also-ran X-Factor boy band that became a global pop culture juggernaut. Morgan Spurlock’s One Direction: This is Us is really nothing but a propaganda piece, a giant feature-length 3D pat on the back where a manufactured pop sensation are compared – not once, but twice – to The Beatles.

And there’s really nothing wrong with that. After all, this was never going to be an insightful piece of cinematic journalism, prying behind closed doors at the forces propelling One Direction to fame and the careful and painstaking maintenance and protection of the brand name. Anybody expecting anything but a celebratory ninety-odd minutes of mutual appreciation was clearly expecting something quite different from what was promised.

As piece of pop culture brand management, One Direction: This is Us is actually quite well-constructed. Spurlock knows how to frame an interesting documentary, and has always been theatrical and stylish. Even the talking head shots in One Direction: This is Us are tastefully shot, against a dark highway at night, Simon Cowell’s sterile studio apartment or in a band member’s makeshift art studio. There are moments in One Direction: This is Us when it looks like some humanity might accidentally shine through, but the film is quick to stamp that out with gushing about the fans and patronising discussions about how unique and individual the band members are.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Beatles, Boy band, Harry, Keith Richards, Leicester Square, Michael Jackson, Morgan Spurlock, One Direction, Simon Cowell, Spurlock, Super Size Me, United States, x-factor | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Star Trek VI – The Undiscovered Country

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Darren

This August, to celebrate the upcoming release of Star Trek: Into Darkness on DVD and blu ray, we’re taking a look at the Star Trek movies featuring the original cast. Movie reviews are every Tuesday and Thursday.

Whatever its faults, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a fond farewell to the original cast of Star Trek, giving the ensemble one last epic adventure before heading off into legend. Chancellor Gorkon suggests that the “the undiscovered country” that lends the movie its title is “the future.” Most Shakespearean scholars would argue that it is “death.” Perhaps they need to – as Gorkon argues – “experience” it in “the original Klingon”, or perhaps there’s more to it than that.

Perhaps the undiscovered country can be both – the death waiting for all of us eventually, the “chimes at midnight” that Chang alludes to after a disastrous diplomatic dinner. Probably not. Still, The Undiscovered Country does represent a death. It’s the end of an era, the extinguishing of a torch that had already been passed. It’s the last adventure of Kirk’s starship Enterprise, and it feels appropriate that it serves to end the Cold War raging between the Klingons and the Federation.

It’s a beautiful farewell to the crew, to the extent that even the actors’ decision to “sign” the closing credits doesn’t feel over saccharine or manipulative. The movie has more than its fair share of narrative flaws, neither as tight as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan nor as energetic as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. However, it hangs together remarkably well, in no small part thanks to a solid premise, a strange honesty and a deep affection for the cast and crew.

We’re having some old friends for dinner…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Berlin Wall, Cold War, Francis Fukuyama, history, kirk, Liberal democracy, Soviet Union, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, star trek iv the voyage home, star trek vi: the undiscovered country, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, StarTrek, Twentieth Century, United States | 20 Comments »

Star Trek – Dwellers in the Crucible by Margaret Wander Bonanno (Review)

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

The state of Star Trek tie-ins in 1985 was radically different than it is today. While the film series was at height of its popularity, generating a great deal of attention for the franchise, authors working on the associated tie-in novels were granted a great deal of freedom. Books from this era tend to be a great deal looser, adapting a sort of “devil may care” attitude towards the type of restrictions one might impose on a Star Trek story. Novels could be dedicated to new characters or to existing aliens, or offer radical twists on the show’s rich mythology. It was almost free-style Star Trek, with authors afforded the freedom to tell the stories that they wanted to tell, no matter how difficult it might be to fit that within the confines of “Star Trek.”

Dwellers in the Crucible captures a lot of the spirit of this era quite well. It’s Margaret Wander Bonanno’s first Star Trek tie-in book, but it’s also her strangest. It’s a rather high-concept piece of trashy “women in prison” fiction that dares to ask a question that nobody in their right mind had ever broached before: what if Kirk and Spock were lesbians?

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Bonanno, Crucible, Diane Duane, gene roddenberry, John M. Ford, Klingon, Margaret Wander Bonanno, spock, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, vulcan | 2 Comments »

Hannibal – Fromage (Review)

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Darren

With Fromage, Hannibal walks a bit of a fine line. One of the obvious conflicts in the first half of the season was between the procedural “serial killer of the week” elements and the more intriguing character-driven parts of the show. I think that, past the half-way point of the first season, the show begins to balance those two aspects much better. However, Fromage can’t help but feel a little bit contrived. It relies a rather convenient overlap between Hannibal’s world and Will Graham’s investigation.

Still, it works quite well as a continuation of the themes hinted at in Sorbet, and takes advantage of the fact that the show has completely embraced its lead character’s darker side. If Entrée and Sorbet pushed Hannibal from the periphery of the story into the spotlight, then Fromage allows him to actively drive the story. It’s the show’s first serial-killer-heavy story that is driven more by Hannibal than by Graham.

Work and play…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Benjamin Raspail, Bryan Fuller, Fromage, gillian anderson, hannibal, hannibal lecter, Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, NBC, Sorbet, thomas harris, Tobias, Vocal folds, will graham | Leave a comment »

Watch! New All Is Lost Trailer

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Darren

Universal sent over the latest trailer for All is Lost. Starring Robert Redford as a man adrift, the movie is written by and directed by J.C. Chandor. Chandor made a name for himself as the writer and director of Margin Call, a peek behind the curtain at the events leading up to the financial crisis. All is Lost looks to be an entirely different animal. With only one credited role (Redford as “our man”), it looks like a showcase for the leading actor’s talents.

The film has been generating good buzz (I hear it was well-received at the Galway Film Fleadh), and it looks like a fascinating old-school man-against-unforgiving-nature survival drama. Check out the trailer below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, All Is Lost, arts, cannes, J.C. Chandor, Lost comet, Margin Call, Movie, Redford, Robert Redford | Leave a comment »

Star Trek – The Ashes of Eden by William Shatner et al (DC Comics) (Review)

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

The Ashes of Eden is effectively professionally published Star Trek fan fiction, written by William Shatner. The actor gets some assistance from veteran Star Trek writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, but it’s clear that Shatner is the driving force behind The Ashes of Eden. Indeed, an astute reader will spot quite a few thematic overlaps with Shatner’s much-maligned directorial effort, only without the rest of the cast around to temper his efforts to make this a story about Kirk and Kirk alone.

Still, The Ashes of Eden isn’t as bad as it might be. After all, just because something is fan fiction – professionally published or otherwise – says nothing of its quality. The story is probably best read as an exploration between Shatner and his alter ego, but it holds together quite well, providing a much more solid (if still far from perfect) exploration of the themes hinted at in Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

The dusk of an era…

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Filed under: Comics, The Original Series | Tagged: Ashes of Eden, Drake, james t. kirk, kirk, Klingon, Mary Sue, Romulan, Shatner, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, star trek: enterprise, StarTrek, Sulu, William Shatner | 4 Comments »

Hannibal – Sorbet (Review)

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Darren

Hannibal took its time building up Hannibal Lecter as a serial killer. According to creator Bryan Fuller, there would have been a joke in Aperitif about Lecter’s culinary habits, but holding off on the sight of Lecter as a serial killer until the end of Entrée feels like it was a shrewd move. Not because it could ever fool the audience into forgetting that Hannibal Lecter is a murdering cannibal or anything like that. Instead, it builds up a certain amount of tension and suspense around the character, allowing us to see how those around him could have been blinded by his persona.

With a few obvious exceptions – knocking out Doctor Bloom in Potage or phoning the Hobbs household in Aperitif – we’ve mostly seen Lecter through the eyes of others. While the very premise of the show counts on the audience knowing who or what Lecter is, keeping him at a distance allowed the show a bit of breathing room in its first year. However, now that we’ve caught a glimpse of Lecter in action, Sorbet feels like its willing to pull back the layers on our eponymous epicurean.

Best served warm…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Anthony Hopkin, Bryan Fuller, hannibal, hannibal lecter, Hugh Dancy, laurence fishburne, Lecter, Mads Mikkelsen, Minnesota, murder, NBC, serial killer, silence of the lambs, Television, thomas harris, will graham | Leave a comment »

Star Trek – Music of the Spheres by Margaret Wander Bonanno (Review)

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

Music of the Spheres is something of a legend in Star Trek circles. It’s not quite a ghost story, spoken of in hushed whispers. Indeed, author Margaret Wander Bonanno has made the manuscript available to interested fans via her website, and has used it to raise money for a variety of worth causes. She’s documented the difficult story of how her original novel warped in Probe in a wonderfully wry and insightful essay, offering a glimpse at the inner workings of Pocket Book and Paramount towards the end of the eighties.

It’s a rare peek behind the curtain, with Music of the Spheres serving as a compelling vehicle to explore just what was going on inside Star Trek licensing in the late eighties and early nineties.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Brad Ferguson, Breaking Bad, Final Reflection, gene roddenberry, List of Breaking Bad characters, Margaret Wander Bonanno, Michael Jan Friedman, Michael Piller, Motion Picture - Star Trek, paramount pictures, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Trek | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Star Trek V – The Final Frontier

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Darren

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is not a good movie. There’s really nothing that can be excavated from the film that might redeem it. It isn’t a misunderstood masterpiece. It isn’t an insightful diamond in the rough. It’s just a bad film, the one which forms the cornerstone of the “odd-numbered Star Trek films” curse. It’s indulgent, pretentious and narrow-minded. It tries to blend a world-weary cynicism with an ill-judged and mean-spirited sense of humour.

Despite being shorter than Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, it feels remarkably longer. It feels like a rather halfhearted attempt to recapture the spirit of the television show – oblivious to the fact that the franchise has spent the past decade moving onwards. It confuses ponderous pretension for intelligent insight.