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February 2013 (Jameson Dublin International Film Festival) In Review

Man. That was exhausting. 29 events spread across 11 days, including classic films. It was a hell of a festival, with quite an impressive programme put together. In fact, by any measure, it was actually a stronger festival than last year’s, even if I didn’t catch a film that was quite as good as The Raid this time around. Using the 4-point audience award scale, the numbers stack in this year’s favour. Indeed, I gave one more “4” than last year and – most impressively – I actually managed to avoid giving out the lowest grade at all, the dreaded “1.” Maybe I’m getting a bit softer as I get older, but I think that’s an indication that I had a pretty good Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

thesummit5

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A Month on the BBC Global iPlayer

The kind folks over at the BBC were nice enough to give me access to the iPlayer for a month in order to review it. So I’ve spent to past month watching various BBC productions on my iPhone in a variety of circumstances. I’ve streamed them at home, I’ve downloaded and watched them on the bus; I’ve used the iPhone’s speakers and I’ve listened with my headphones; I’ve tried old and new and various types of programmes and shows. I have to admit to being quite impressed with the product, even if I do have some slight reservations.

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February 2012 (Jameson Dublin International Film Festival) In Review

Well, it’s been a fun month. I’ve been blogging from Dublin’s annual movie festival, the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, which ran for the eleven days leading up to the Oscars. I saw twenty-five films in the festival, two films outside it, and took part in two of the special movie-related events. It was quite a month of high-intensity movie-going experiences, and I think that the entire group responsible for organising the festival deserve considerable credit for pulling off. I thought it might be handy to centralise all my reviews and articles relating to the festival in one place, just for ease of reference. Some of these might be opening near you soon, some may get more limited releases, and some are already out, but these are the films I saw as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2012.

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November 2011 In Review

I’m running a bit behind on everything this week, so I’ll try to keep this brief and get it published before midnight. This is just a post I do at the end of the month to help people who might end up trawling the archives by months trying to make sense of what’s going on. Being honest, it’s mainly for me, if I ever want to trawl back and marvel at how poorly formulated (and occasionally just incorrect) my ideas happened to be.

Anyway, November 2011 was a strange month. A lot to get done, and so little time to get it done in. It’s Christmas soon, which is insane. Anyway, I got very lucky and happened to get featured on the IMDb hit list twice in the month, in quick succession.

The first piece, an article about the lesser-regarded works of well-known directors went up over a weekend…

And the second, a more controversial and divisive piece about suspension of disbelief, went up the Tuesday of the next week.

I know that I don’t do this for the kudos – and that this is a very nice cherry on top of something I do just to vent my own crazy and insane thoughts on film – but it’s always awesome to be honoured by those people who know film. I’m always glad to see a link come from a forum or another article, because it means that I’m hopefully contributing in some small way to a discussion.

But enough of that. Onwards and upwards! 2012 approaches, and I’ve got some medium-scale plans. 2013 is where the action is. Mark your diaries for that!

October 2011 In Review

I occasionally post a little section at the end of the month reviewing some of the more interesting stuff I’ve written – perhaps it might be helpful to a reader navigating the archives, but it’s really for myself, looking back from time to time. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

It was a fun month here at the m0vie blog, and one in which we gleefully got to indulge our nerdy little interests. To celebrate the release of Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, I decided to try to review all 24 of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin. In case you want to browse the reviews, here they are:

It was also a fun month because I somehow ended up on the front page of IMDb, recommended on their hit-list for an article I wrote about my anticipation around the release of Tintin. It’s always a huge pleasure to be cited by people who you admire and respect, in a field where they are really the very big players, and I’m honestly humbled by the experience.

And then there was this

Paul Cornell, comic book writer at DC and writer for the revived Doctor Who (and the novels that preceded it), linked to my review of his superb run on Action Comics. It’s one of the truly great modern comic book runs, and wholeheartedly recommended, but it’s just really, really cool to have Mr. Cornell acknowledge the review. At the risk of gushing, he’s a writer that I’ve been following ever since I caught a repeat of Father’s Day, which was the episode that convinced me that Doctor Who was well worth my time. So, the idea that the guy somehow innocuously clicked on to this blog made my week.

So, yep, at the risk of geeking, it was an awesome month.

June in Review

It’s been a heck of a month. It has also been while since I’ve done one of these “wrap up” posts, which are probably more for myself than for anybody else, when I pop onto the blog in my old age and want to laugh at what a foolish young man I was with all manner of crazy and poorly-thought-out ideas. So I try to post one of these at the end of point out some of the stuff that I wrote that I’m kinda happy with – the stuff that I might want to read first if I ever look back on this so I don’t despair of the man I was. Or some nonsense like that.

Anyway, just last night I was delighted to submit a last-minute article on Transformers 3 to the superb Morality Bites blogathon. It’s always great to be asked to take part, even if I’m rarely the most organised person taking part.

Anyway, this was the month when I was lucky enough to end up on the IMDb Hit List twice… in the space of a single week. I still can’t understand how that happened, but am genuinely humbled by it. As I’ve said before, it’s an honour to be noticed by the kinda people who love what you love – it’s a huge source of pride that the on-line film resource thought that my hastily-collected gibberish was worthy of attention, and I am still a little bit giddy and star-struck. There’s nothing like being acknowledged by the guys who do what you do… but 1,000,000x better. Sorry, this is a long rambling waffle.

The first post to be selected was a post on this year’s Comic Con that wondered if the move away from the event could foreshadow a fading interest in the geek audience

Then, a few days later, I happened to get up there again for a piece I am honestly glad that people noticed, something about Pixar. Because I genuinely love Pixar, and I don’t get to talk about them often enough. And because Cars 2 is getting a lot of criticism, and sometimes I worry we ignore the really good stuff in life…

… I was especially honoured when the wordpress team also freshly pressed the very same article. The guys are exceedingly wonderful to let myself and all the other bloggers a platform to share our (sometimes haphazardly formed) thoughts with the world, and it’s really great when they do notice something you’ve written. It’s good to know that maybe the people who work hard to offer you a service like this one got a little enjoyment from your effort – like you’re giving a very tiny something back. It is an absolute joy to be listed in such a way.

But that’s the end of the month. Plenty of stuff happened before hand.  I was really looking forward to Green Lantern, only to be a little let down by it. I also wrote a geeky article for another site I occasionally write for about the links between Grant Morrison and Christopher Nolan’s Batman, which I’m also a little bit geeky proud of.

Outside of nerdy stuff, I wondered about classic films I hadn’t seen (one (and a bit) to cross off: Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now Redux), and if even a great film can be far too long. Oh, and when we start thinking of the family of famous celebrities as their own individuals rather than extensions of their relatives.

So, it was an awesome month. I can only hopt the next is nearly half as good.

February 2011 (JDIFF and For the Love of Film Noir) In Review…

Hey, I’ve been shortlisted for two Irish Blog Awards, Best Pop Culture Blog and Best Arts and Culture Blog. I’m honoured and delighted to make the shortlist which is, as ever, populated with some of the best Irish talent around. Anyway, February was a busy month, what with the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival and the For The Love of Film Noir Blogathon going on. And I had my 1,000th post.

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James Bond January in Review

It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these, and I’m not sure I should bring them back – but, hey, it might be nice to have an index of all the James Bond January shenanigans I got up to this January. Let’s start with the reviews  of the 22 films – all of them:

I also did some James Bond related posts in the month. I wondered about the “James Bond is just a codename” theory, pondered what Bond 23 might have in store for the franchise and wondered if Bond gets away with so much because we dismiss a lot of its British nationalism as “quaint”.

Apart from all that, I wondered if the film 300 was actually racist, and dared to suggest it wasn’t. I took a look at Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming X-Men: First Class and superhero nostalgia. I also pondered what Christopher Nolan’s Bane might look like. It was a fun month, and I hope that next month will be just as exciting.

Thanks again to Paragraph Films for throwing the whole “James Bond January” thing together. It was a joy to take part.

June in Review

It’s been a hectic June. A fun June, but a hectic one. For those new to the site, this is just a brief index of (what I thought) were the cream of the crop of my thoughts for the month, so I can come back in a few years and laugh my ass at off at my stupid ideas.

The decision of Christopher Nolan not to recast the Joker in Batman 3 led us to ask what “trust” in a director really means – and whether the loss of del Toro would really affect The Hobbit in a good way or a bad way (which was part of a cross-blog event with the rather awesome Andrewhis counter-proposal is here).

Aside from the (arguably objectively) awesome Toy Story 3, we found conclusive proof that Pixar are legendary.

Hollywood’s continued fascination with sequels got to me – but I worried they might simply be replaced with a wave of side-character-centric spin-offs. Of course, there’s no promise that, in the future, these movies will be screened for critics. And Anomalous Materials’ quest to find the greatest comedy of all time led me to wonder if comedies age worse than other films.

Oh, and my brother wrote his first ever review (and first ever guest-article on this site) for Get Him to the Greek.

May in Review

When I wake up in the morning, love, and the sun light hurts my eyes…
And something without warning, love, bares heavy on my mind…
Then I look to you (then I look to you), and the world’s alright with me…
Just one look to you and I know it’s gonna be…
A lovely May…

Sorry, for some reason that tune is on my mind. It’s been a fun May. As of the start of the month, we are one year old. That’s like seven in dog years. And speaking of blog-related fun, congratulations to all the LAMMY nominees, a list so prestigious we aren’t even on it. Seriously, these guys are the best at what they do and take the time to show your love.

Otherwise, we did some serious pondering this month – perhaps appropriately given the Lost series finale (which didn’t really answer any question – not that it should have). We wondered whether books such as Watchmen and The Road were ever really “unfilmable”, or if the word even really applied.

We wondered what “success” is for a modern blockbuster after Iron Man 2 succeeded… adequately. That movie also got us thinking as to whether (if or when) movie outlets should refuse to publish spoilers.

We also took part in two rather wonderful blogothons. The one run by Mike over at You Talking to Me charting the movies that made going to the cinema suck (I took Spider-Man and Toy Story, for my sins) and a musical marathon blogothon over at Encore’s World of Film & Television (I nominated The Lion King). Both entries feature top draw talent and are well worth your time.

As an aside – this seems the place to mention it – my life has gotten a bit hectic of late, with work and life and stuff. I have taken to drafting articles over the weekend before publishing them, and letting them go out at two-a-day. I hope I can keep this up, but I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m still here. I sort through the comments whenever I can find an hour or two to set aside (once or twice a week) and I’m really grateful to everyone who comes here. I don’t get a chance to reply as swiftly as I would like, but I do try to reply to every comment here. Anyway, I said it in my birthday post and I’ll say it again – thanks for stopping by, it’s much appreciated.