Movies | the m0vie blog

Jameson Cult Film Club: Predator

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Darren

I had the privilege of attending last Tuesday evening’s Jameson Cult Film Club screening of Predator. It’s easy to take for granted the care a preparation that goes into these nights celebrating popular classic films, but the crew pulled out all of the usual stops for the evening, turning their city centre into something of a jungle. From improvised death traps (within health and safety regulations, of course) through to advice on movie etiquette translated from… whatever that noise is that Predator’s make, the evening was a fitting tribute to an eighties cult classic.

Again, the production team walked the line, balancing the need for spectacle carefully against the integrity of the film. Predator is a loud film by its nature, and the special effects on the location were well-chosen to turn the volumes up to eleven. The pyrotechnics display during the movie’s climax was just astounding, as were brief interludes of the Predator itself preparing for battle or cleaning up after one.

The guys at Jameson Cult Film have sent over some snapshots of the night. Check them out below and click to enlarge. In the meantime, feel free to register at their website for free tickets to their next event, which I am already looking forward to.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, arts, cult film, cult movies, die hard, DVD, Movies, New York City | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: 12 Years a Slave

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Darren

12 Years a Slave is a harrowing and moving piece of cinema. The most profound and cutting of the recent studio films to explore slavery in America, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is almost relentless in its probing explorations of the systems an structures that allowed and reinforced that slavery – it’s hard to watch at points, providing a deeply unsettling glimpse at the suffering that man is capable of inflicting upon his fellow man.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 12 Years a Slave, Benedict Cumberbatch, chiwetel ejiofor, Darkest Africa, John Ridley, Michael Fassbender, Slavery, Solomon, Solomon Northup, steve mcqueen, United States | 7 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Hunger Games – Catching Fire

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Darren

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire suffers from a problem comic to the second story in planned trilogies. It lacks its own clear arc or structure, instead serving as a little more (or perhaps a little less) than half a film. There’s no conclusion or resolution here, just a lot dangling plot threads and insinuations – the suggestion of a larger and grander conflict looming on the horizon that might offer some measure of closure.

While it improves on quite a few flaws from the first film, it ultimately feels rather hollow; like an extended trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay.

Hungry for more?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Catching Fire, film, george lucas, Hunger, Hunger Game, Hunger Games, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Katniss Everdeen, Mockingjay, Movies, Poverty | 11 Comments »

Doctor Who: Time Crash (Review)

Posted on November 21, 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.

Time Crash originally aired in 2007.

To days to come.

All my love to long ago.

– the Fifth and Tenth Doctors look backwards and forwards

There is a strange school of thought about the revived Doctor Who, populated by a very vocal minority of fans, who insist that the new series hasn’t been paying nearly enough attention to what came before – that it’s really the show “in name only” or whatever extremist rhetoric you want to use. These are the fans who refuse to be satisfied with The Day of the Doctor because it’s not “The Eleven Doctors”, without having actually seen the anniversary special.

These are fans who are heartbroken that the show hasn’t found time to show Paul McGann regenerating into Christopher Eccleston, or who object to the destruction of Gallifrey or the re-working of monsters with messy back stories like the Cybermen in order to make them more accessible to modern audiences. It’s worth stressing that this viewpoint is very much in the minority, but it exists. Any journey into on-line forums or discussions about the show will inevitably trip across this particular viewpoint.

Of course, that’s complete nonsense. Even if it was ambiguous beforehand, Time Crash exists as nothing short a love letter to a very particular past era of the show.

More than just a tip of the hat…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Andrew Cartmel, christopher eccleston, Colin Baker, doctor, DoctorWho, Fifth Doctor, Gallifrey, paul mcgann, Peter Davison, Sensorites, Sylvester McCoy, tardis, William Hartnell | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: The Family

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Darren

I can’t tell you what The Family is. Not because of omerta or anything as cliché as that, but because it seems like The Family itself doesn’t know. I can describe what happens in the film, taking you through the events as they unfold on screen. I can describe the set-up. I can talk about its obvious influences. But I can’t tell you what exactly Luc Besson’s latest film actually is, because it seems like Besson himself can’t make up his mind.

Is it an action film with a quirky and unconventional set-up? Is it a gangster comedy about a former crook trying to go straight? Is it a fish-out-of-water comedy of manners about Americans arriving in northern France? Is it a pitch black comedy about a self-justifying sociopath attempting to carve out his own place in the world? Is it a high-stakes thriller about a family putting their lives on the line? Is it a weird coming-of-age drama? The Family is all of these things at various points, but it never commits to any of them.

Instead, it uses these elements to just keep circling until the running time is over.

Family values…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Besson, Dianna Agron, EuropaCorp, family, film, france, Gangster, luc besson, michelle pfeiffer, Movie, Robert De Niro, robert deniro, Soprano, United States | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Predator

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Darren

Predator is an absolutely brilliant piece of work. It’s elegantly constructed, beautifully directed and cleverly written. Perhaps the smartest thing about Predator is the way that it so fantastically plays on audience expectations, offering the perfect bait-and-switch, teasing a jungle adventure in the style of Schwarzenegger’s Commando before morphing into something else entirely. It’s so well handled that the film’s reputation and prestige has done little to dampen its thrills.

A predator stalks…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: afghanistan, alien, aliens, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Berlin, Carl Weathers, Central Intelligence Agency, Chicago Blackhawks, cia, Dutch, H.R. Giger, Health, Horror film, james cameron, John McTiernan, Libya, monster movie, Nashville Predators, predator, Richard Anderson, Stan Winston, Universal Monster | 4 Comments »

Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos (Review)

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Darren

Vengeance on Varos originally aired in 1985.

It’s a question of re-imprinting their identities, of establishing again who they are.

– Colin Baker spots the problems with the Colin Baker era

Vengeance on Varos is a serious contender for the best Colin Baker Doctor Who story. Not that there’s too much competition. It’s either this or Revelation of the Daleks. I’m also reasonably fond of The Two Doctors, but I’ll accept that I’m in the minority on that one. Colin Baker’s first season is an absolute mess. It has a scattering of half-decent ideas (paired with some atrocious ones, to be fair) executed in a rather slapdash manner.

The season is obsessed with violence and politics and power and the Doctor’s strange ability to accrue large body counts while nominally remaining a pacifist. Like the last year of Peter Davison’s tenure, there’s a sense that the show doesn’t really like its protagonist. Attack of the Cybermen seems willing to trade him for a murderous sociopath. Still, there’s the nugget of an interesting idea there; it’s telling that the revived series would explore some of these ideas in a more insightful and intelligent manner.

However, Vengeance on Varos and Revelation of the Daleks stand apart from the rest of the season because they explore these issues with nuance and sophistication. Vengeance on Varos is wicked social satire that still stings today, an indictment of reality television that was broadcast almost two decades before the format took over television.

It’s okay, the audience seems to actually like this one…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Bad Wolf, bbc, Caves of Androzani, Colin Baker, Dalek, doctor, DoctorWho, fiction, literature, Michael Grade, Online Writing, Peter Davison, russell t. davies, science fiction, Sil, VARO, Varos, Vengeance, Vengeance on Varos, Year of the Sex Olympics | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Don Jon

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Darren

Don Jon is a confident directorial debut from actor and write Joseph Gordon Levitt. Levitt himself stars as the eponymous “Don”, a stereotypically macho young man from New Jersey, who splits his time between nightclubs, churches, the gym, his car and his pornography addiction. Written and directed by Levitt, Don Jon has a charming lightness that allows the movie to play with some pretty heavy subject matter. (After all, the last major film to explore sex addiction was Shame, which was as brilliant as it was harrowing.)

Don Jon is perhaps the sweetest movie ever made about porn addiction. A superb demonstration of Levitt’s already enviable talents, and a confident and slick feature film directorial debut.

Toast of the town…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: anne hathaway, Channing Tatum, Cuba Gooding, Don Jon, DonJon, Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julianne Moore, Levitt, List of directorial debuts, New Jersey, pornography, scarlett johansson, Sexual addiction | 7 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Counsellor

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Darren

There are two ways of looking at The Counsellor, both handily articulated by the movie itself.

At one point, two characters engage in an abstract conversation about grief. They speak on the phone about what it means to lose something that is irreplaceable, and what that does to a person. They speak in metaphors and lyrical turns of phrase, dancing around the issue at hand. One participant in the conversation recounts the story of Spanish poet Machido, who managed to channel his grief into beautiful and moving poetry. Poetry woven from misery and suffering, beautiful and yet torturous. Much like The Counsellor itself, a story about corruption and consequences and greed and wraith, articulated with thoughtful elegance.

There’s a lot going on under the hood…

At another point, one character regales another with a tale of his strange sexual misadventures. Awkward metaphors are used to describe exactly what went down, as the other character (and the audience) watch on in a state of awkward disbelief. Using surprisingly elegant language – never at a loss for words to describe a truly surreal turn of events – the storyteller crafts a stunning portrait of a bizarre encounter. Trying to make sense of it all, the listener articulates the thought running through the mind of most of the audience. “Why did you feel the need to tell me that?”

The Counsellor straddles both extremes almost recklessly, veering from a sophisticated and thoughtful moral tale into something grotesquely indulgent and almost distractingly oblique. During one conversation, the seductive Malkina asks her lover Renier how he sees things playing out. He can’t help but imagine two contrasting extremes. With just a hint of self-awareness, Malkina point out that there’s a middle that Renier just isn’t seeing.

Deal or no deal?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, brad pitt, cameron diaz, Conversation, cormac mccarthy, Counsellor, Daniel Pemberton, De optimo senatore, javier bardem, Malkina, McCarthy, Mexican, Michael Fassbender, no country for old men, ridley scott, Westray | 7 Comments »

Win! Tickets to a Jameson Cult Film Club Screening of Predator on November 19th!

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Darren

Due to unprecedented demand, the Jameson Cult Film Club is returning to Dublin for an explosive screening of the 1987 classic, PREDATOR, at a secret Dublin location on Tuesday 19th November 2013.

These free events are more than just your typical screening, as characters from the movie, live theatre and special effects timed perfectly with on-screen action help to create an electric atmosphere throughout the movie.