The Amazing Spider-Man and Human Torch is a sweet little book, if just a little bit too nostalgic for my tastes. A five-issue miniseries, it allows Dan Slott to show us five vignettes exploring the relationship between Marvel’s iconic webhead and the youngest member of the Fantastic Four. Slott leans a little bit too heavily on continuity in places, trying too keenly to fit the story inside an established mythology, but The Amazing Spider-Man and Human Torch reads like an affectionate homage to the relative innocence of the Silver Age. I don’t doubt that Slott’s solid character work here helped secure the writer his current position as author of The Amazing Spider-Man, and the story is a fun (if light) look back on the hokey adventures of yesteryear.
I had the pleasure, on Wednesday evening, of attending the Jameson Cult Film Club screening of The Silence of the Lambs. Any excuse to see Jonathan Demme’s masterpiece is worth taking up, but this was a wonderful night for two reasons. The first is that fact that although I am a huge fan of the film, I had never seen it before on a big screen. I’d only ever seen it on home media. The second reason is, as you might expect, that the guys and girls at the Jameson Cult Film Club really surpassed themselves in creating a powerfully immersive experience.
Shadowlands is, at its core, a very typical “weepy” romantic drama. However, it’s an exceptionally well-executed example of the genre, one that demonstrates a rather uncanny understanding about the complexities of love and loss that help it stand out from a lot of its fellow films. A superbly powerful central performance from Anthony Hopkins certainly doesn’t hurt, and Richard Attenborough’s elegant, yet unintrusive, direction allows the story to flow without ever feeling too emotionally manipulative. It’s an intelligent and well-constructed exploration of a tragic love affair, one that feels distinctly human in its approach to its subjects and themes.
Does Hopkins deliver a superb performance? You can bank on it…
Would you ‘adam and eve it’, the Jameson Cult Film Club is coming to Galway, and we’ve teamed up with Jameson to offer tickets to one lucky geezer and three of his mates to the ultimate screening experience of Snatch in a secret location in Galway on August 23rd.
The Jameson Cult Film Club is all about watching your favourite cult films at spectacular screenings staged to transport the audience right into the world of the movie. These free events are not just your typical screening, it’s an experiential viewing experience with clever use of props, staging and live action to ensure the audience in the venue are transported right into the world of the movie! Characters from the movie, live theatre and special effects timed perfectly with on-screen action help to create an electric atmosphere and leave movie fans wanting more.
There’s a very thin line between being a tribute to something and becoming an example of it. The Expendables sold itself as an affectionate homage to the cheesy eighties action movies that you’d find populating the godforsaken post-midnight hours on a local television station. They’re the kind of movies we remember with a sense of casual fondness – we don’t lie to ourselves that they were great, but focus on the cheesy one-liners and the ridiculous stunts and the scenery-chewing bad guys. Unfortunately, those movies generally weren’t as good as we remember them. We omit certain details – the terrible pseudo-political subtext shoehorned in, the cringe-worthy character work, the pacing issues, the performances that aren’t so bad they become good, but are instead so bad that they remain bad. The Expendables felt like a revived eighties late-night action movie, rather than a tribute to our cultural memory of one.
So I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed The Expendables 2, the sequel to the all-star actioner. It seems to have learned a lot from its predecessor and feels like exactly the sort of light and brainless entertainment we remember, rather than the mind-numbingly bad films we actually watched.
Proof that there is no such thing as “too much free time” and that the internet, I present to you, the movies singing that underappreciated nineties classic, Baby Got Back. I can’t imagine how much time and research it took, but it’s worth it hear Tim Roth finish the line “flat butts are the thing.” And Anthony Hopkins contributing to Sir Mix-a-Lot’s pop masterpiece.
Psycho is a masterpiece from Alfred Hitchcock, a uniquely American horror story that redefined and codified the horror genre. Even after one has already seen the film, and knows the twists and the plotting detours that Hitchcock’s adaptation of Robert Bloch’s novel might make, it’s still a powerful and compelling piece of cinema. Hitchcock laid a template here that would inform generations of horror films that followed, with the DNA of Psycho to be found even in the most unlikely of places.
“You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave…”
Note: Hitchcock famously guarded the ending to this project. “Don’t give away the ending — it’s the only one we have!” he pleaded in advertisements. However, it has been fifty-two years, so I fear that the statute of limitations on potential spoilers has expired. After all, Psycho has been so massively influential it’s hard not to know what happens. If, by some fluke, you know nothing about the film… see it! See it now! We’ll still be here when you get back.
We’re big fans of Martin McDonagh here at the m0vie blog, so the arrival of the trailer for his latest effort is kinda a big deal. With a cast including Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson, it looks delightfully ridiculous, with the writer and director’s distinctive brand of black humour on display. It’s arriving soon (but not soon enough), and the trailer is below.
I am of two minds about Kurt Busiek’s and Pat Olliffe’s celebrated Untold Tales of Spider-Man run. On the one hand, Busiek manages to affectionately evoke the spirit of those classic Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Spider-Man stories, without getting too bogged down in minor or confusing continuity. On the other hand, the stories feel somewhat trapped and confined by having to contort around the existing storylines. Naturally, for example, Busiek can’t resolve any plot threads he doesn’t keep exclusive to the book, and we all know how various situations unfold. It’s a strange cocktail, and it works slightly more often than it doesn’t work. It’s very much in the spirit of the author’s much-loved work on the Avengers, and there’s no denying the skill and love that went into crafting the issues collected here, but I find that I respect The Untold Tales of Spider-Man more than I love it.
I am a pretty big fan of Daredevil as a character, if only because he works extremely well a deconstruction of superheroes – expecially of the Batman archetype. That’s part of the reason I’m surprised that Fox never really did anything with him while Nolan was doing Batman. The character is a mess of hero – to the point where he’d make Nolan and Bale’s Bruce Wayne appear well-adjusted. His secret identity has gone public, he’s had a nervous breakdown from the pressure he puts himself under, he’s obsessive, self-righteous and refuses to acknowledge that he may occasionally need help. In short, he’s pretty much exactly the kind of person who shouldn’t be a superhero.
There was talk a little while back of director Joe Carnahan helming a Daredevil film. Fox has held on to the rights since the disappointing Ben Affleck incarnation, but never did anything with them, save for the dire Elektra spin-off. It emerged recently that director Joe Carnahan had pitched for the film. It never happened, and Fox is letting the rights revert to Marvel, but he has released a proof of concept (cobbling together clips, comic panels, and voiceovers from various sources) to give us an idea of what it might have looked like. While Carnahan has yet to truly impress me, I’ll admit that his take looks absolutely fascinating. Much like X-Men: First Class, it looks like a period piece. While Matthew Vaughn brought out the best in the mutants by evoking the social change of the sixties, I think there’s something very clever about a Daredevil film set in the seventies.
That said, I can’t imagine what looks like a gloriously grindhouse exploitation superhero movie making too much money. Which is a shame, because I’d love to see Marvel get back in touch with Carnahan when they appropriate the rights. Sadly, if they do decide to use Daredevil, I don’t see Carnahan’s vision meshing with the shared movie continuity, which is a massive shame. (It’s also something I don’t like about mainstream comics, and I’m sad to see those sorts of concern ported over to the more accessible medium of film. It’s hard to imagine the company producing a seventies exploitation film in the shared universe with Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor, especially given it woul rule the character out of cameos and guest appearances in modern films.))
Still, he’s released two proof of concept trailers. They’re very crude in terms of execution, and seem to mostly establish tone and theme, but I like them. I really do. They seem much more in keeping with the character than the original film. I do hope that Marvel at least talks to Carnahan. This wouldn’t be the safest option for the character, but it would be fun and unique.
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