Movies | the m0vie blog

Jameson Cult Film Club: Friday the 13th, Part II

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Darren

In many ways, Friday the 13th, Part II is an interesting choice for a Jameson Cult Film Club event. Traditionally, these special screenings have tended to focus on films that are broadly agreed to be popular classics – films as diverse as Jaws, Alien, Fight Club, The Blues Brothers and Die Hard. There is a very solid argument to be made that Friday the 13th, Part II is the odd film out here.

It is an early eighties slasher film, one with very few nuances. It is a grimy, gritty horror thrown together very quickly to cash in on the success of the of the original film – it is very much channelling better and more successful horrors like Psycho or Halloween. The movie’s defining feature is a ruthless pragmatism, a willingness to do anything to get a jolt from the audience.

As such, Friday the 13th, Part II is a controversial choice. It is a film that is even subject to considerable debate within the fandom of Friday the 13th. Is it one of the weaker films in the series? Is it one of the stronger? There is a sense that Friday the 13th, Part II is more open to debate and discussion than many of the films screened as part of the Jameson Cult Film Club cycle.

However, the fact that Friday the 13th, Part II is such an off-centre choice is refreshing. It affords the event a considerable freedom With Halloween approaching, the goal seems to have been to do a slasher movie in the Jameson Cult Film Club style, and Friday the 13th, Part II works very well in that context.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cinema, films, friday the 13th, friday the 13th part 2, industries hall, jameson cult film club, Jason Voorhees, Movies, rds | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Babadook

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Darren

Monsters are real.

We all have our own monsters that we keep with us over our lives. “You can’t get rid of the Babadook,” a mysterious storybook threatens early in the runtime of The Babadook. Young Samuel tries to warn his mother Amelia about the monster lurking in the dark spaces – under the bed, in the closet, in the corner of his eye. He offers one rather sage bit of advice when it comes to such creatures. “You have to let it in.”

Writer and director Jennifer Kent has crafted a superlative creature feature with The Babadook, acknowledging the metaphorical nature of monsters. These strange nightmares tend to stand in as expressions of guilt or anxiety. They give expression to thoughts and fear we could never properly articulate. The Babadook teases its audience with questions about the reality of the eponymous creature.

Is the strange “Mr. Babadook” something that truly exists, or is it something Samuel (and maybe Amelia) have created to cope with a horrific trauma?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Australia, film, horror, jennifer kent, monsters, mosnters are real, Movie, non-review review, review, the babadook | Leave a comment »

Watch! Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer!

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Darren

The trailer for Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron has arrived. Check it out below!

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: age of ultron, avengers, Comics, films, marvel, Movies, ultron | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Friday the 13th, Part II

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Darren

There is something almost endearing about how direct the Friday the 13th film series is, how comfortable it is in its skin.

There are arguments to be made that the original Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street are genuine cinematic classics, that are frequently underrated because they were followed by decades of sequels, knock-offs, reboots and remakes. Although they rapidly devolved into franchise zombies, Halloween really jump-started a cinematic genre, and Nightmare on Elm Street was slyly post-modern.

Somebody didn’t read the signs…

In contrast, the Friday the 13th films have no such pretension. Instead, the Friday the 3th films exist as pure and uncompromising slasher schlock. Hack and slash and slice and dice. The Friday the 13th film series is powered not by central themes or ideas, but by a simply desire to churn out movies in which attractive and generic characters get brutally slaughtered. It is a ruthlessly efficient model; there were eight Friday the 13th films released between 1980 and 1989.

It’s hard not to admire the ingenuity at work here – the Friday the 13th films are relentless, refusing to let little things like logic or resolutions get in the way of the next sequel. Friday the 13th, Part II starts the franchise machine properly rolling, by rather efficiently getting around the fact that the first film’s serial killer had been fairly cleanly dispatched. It’s time to meet Jason Voorhees.

If you go down to the woods today…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: final girl, friday th 13th, friday the 13th part 2, friday the 13th: part ii, horror, jason vorhees, slasher | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Fury

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Darren

Fury is an apocalyptic glimpse of warfare.

Unfolding in the last days of the Second World War, as Allied forces pour into Germany from all sides, there’s a sense that this is the end. This is the abyss. As the introductory text explained, Hitler had declared a doctrine of “total war” against these invading forces. Every man woman and child was to be mobilised against the advancing armies, in the hope that it might somehow slow down the Allied war machine. If you throw enough people at it, you might do some damage – even if it is just clogging the gears.

He will strike down with Fury-ous anger…

A movie about a tank crew enduring these last few days, Fury gets considerable mileage out of that image – of human flesh falling before the unstoppable and inevitable machine. At a couple of points in the movie, characters die with their faces quite literally down in the mud. At other points, bodies are crushed beneath the tracks of the eponymous vehicle. Towards the climax, we encounter a body so thoroughly squashed beneath the weight of the Allied advanced that it seems like an empty uniform.

Fury is at its best when it captures the sheer unrelenting terror and horror of the advancing war machine – the nihilism of fighting a war that has already been decided, and the bleak inevitability of large-scale slaughter.

Fog of war…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brad pitt, David Ayer, film, Fury, Jon Bernthal, michael pena, Movie, non-review review, review, second world war, shia labeouf, tank | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Book of Life

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Darren

Book of Life bristles with energy – almost too much energy at times.

Book of Life is a sumptuous feast for the eyes, dynamic and beautiful, elegantly crafted and lovingly staged. It is packed with eye-popping visuals and an electric energy. In many ways, these help to compensate for a script that is simultaneously under-plotted and hyperactive. The basic plot arc of Book of Life – and the trajectory of all the featured characters – can be mapped from the opening scenes, while the movie is over-stuffed with pop culture references and snappy asides.

Book of Life is exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure, almost perfectly calibrated for its ninety-minute runtime. The result is a stylish and suave animated film that pops out of the screen, even if it doesn’t lodge in the memory. There’s little here that hasn’t been done before, but rarely has it been done so stylishly.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: book of life, films, Movies, non-review review, review, reviews | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Nightcrawler

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Darren

Nightcrawler features a tour de force performance from Jake Gyllenhaal.

Gyllenhaal plays Louie (“call me Lou”) Bloom, a wandering and lost soul who stalks late-night Los Angeles in search of a lucrative pay-day. He is just trying to get his foot on the ladder any way that an entrepreneurial young gentleman can – he’s introduced stealing construction supplies and scrap metal so he can sell them on, seguing effortlessly into a well-rehearsed job pitch applying for an unpaid internship.

Bloom seems like a man who has watched people from a distance for years, almost through a filter. Gyllenhaal injects a haunting eccentricity into the character, his wide eyes and practised stillness almost edging Bloom into the uncanny valley. Though he seems to always know just what to say, there’s something distinctly inhuman about Lou Bloom. He watches people, but from the outside. He has got a pretty passable impersonation of a human being down, but there’s just something missing.

Nightcrawler is a fascinating, harrow and occasional wry look at desperation and ruthlessness – and the heady cocktail they make when blended together.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: dan gilroy, film, Jake Gyllenhaal, los angeles, lou bloom, louis bloom, Movie, news, news media, nightcrawler, non-review review, rene russo, review, Television | Leave a comment »

Win! Tickets to the Jameson Cult Film Club screening of Friday The 13th: Part II on Thursday October 23rd!

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Darren

Camp Crystal Lake is looking for new unsuspecting victims… the Jameson Cult Film Club returns to Dublin for a double screening of the 1981 horror classic Friday The 13th: Part II on Wednesday 22nd and Thursday October 23rd. Thanks to the Jameson Cult Film Club, we have some tickets to give away. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: competitions, friday the 13th, friday the 13th: part ii, goodies, jameson, jameson cult film club, jason, jason vorhees, win | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Best of Me

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Darren

As with a lot of Nicholas Sparks adaptations, there’s something inherently reductive about The Best of Me. The film would suggest that characters are either inherently good or inherently bad, with several members of the cast existing as nothing more than roadblocks serving to keep the film’s central couple apart. The Best of Me is not set in the real world; it makes no allowance for the nuanced complexities of human emotions and relationships.

Instead, The Best of Me unfolds in a weird parallel world, a world where all human interactions and feelings are clear-cut and simple. It is easy to see the appeal of this world. It is a realm of romantic fantasy, where probability and chance are simply the tools of dramatic irony; where obvious twists are not only expected, they are obligatory. The Best of Me introduces its male lead, Dawson, reading Stephen Hawking as lazy shorthand for how smart he is. He can’t be that smart, or he’d understand this world doesn’t follow anything as bland as physics.

Throughout The Best of Me, characters ruminate on the machinations of fate and destiny. We are told that mankind has always looked to the stars to guide them. However, this metaphysical musing is not so much a thematic statement as preemptive justification for a contrived (and entirely predictable) final act. The Best of Me is very much a twist in search of a movie. It is a tire-and-tested twist, at that.

However, the characters in The Best of Me don’t seem to realise that there is a difference between fate and hackneyed writing.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: archetypes, bayou, best of me, film, Louisiana, michelle monaghan, Movie, Nicholas Sparks, non-review review, review, romance, the best of me, twists | 2 Comments »

Jameson Cult Film Club Screening of Friday The 13th Part II in Dublin on October 22/23!

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Darren

Happy Halloween!

The Jameson Cult Film Club are hosting a screening of Friday the 13th Part II in Dublin over the 22nd and 23rd of October. It’s a great early Halloween treat, with the group turning a Dublin location into a perfect duplicate of the Camp Crystal Lake Training Centre for the screening. And the tickets are free! If you haven’t already signed up, you can apply for free tickets to the event on the Jameson Cult Film Club website. If you’ve been before, you know how much fun it can be. If you haven’t, you’re in a for a treat.

Also worth pausing to note just what a great horror film connoisseur choice Friday the 13th Part II is. The default choice – and one supported by other horror film series like Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween – would be to pick the first film in the series. However, this is the exception that proves the rule. Sure, you lose out on the Kevin Bacon factor of Friday the 13th Part I, but you get most of the wonderfully iconic aspects of the Friday the 13th film series. A very good choice, by all involved.

The full details are below, after the jump.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: film, friday the 13th, halloween, horror, jameson cult film club, jason, Jason Voorhees, Movie, slasher | Leave a comment »