Movies | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: One Chance

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Darren

It’s very easy to dismiss reality television. Personally, I wouldn’t be the hugest fan of the genre. However, it’s worth remarking that – in the right hands – it can be elevated to an artform. While the use of the word “reality” is applied loosely, it comes with its own narrative conventions – its own strengths and limitations. Carefully micro-managed, painstakingly edited and even sometimes clumsily scripted, reality television is simply another format of televisual entertainment.

It’s not that reality lacks a central crafted narrative or story arcs or character beats. These exist in reality television, albeit in a hyper-stylised meta-textual form. Just as some might advise you to read A Song of Ice and Fire to fully appreciate Game of Thrones, the meta-narrative from reality television spills out the side of the television set, unfolding in tabloids or gossip website. Characters are defined as rigidly, arcs are plotted just as carefully, it’s just that the narrative is crafted differently than it would be in an hour-long scripted drama or a half-hour sit-com.

One Chance, then, feels like the feature length adaptation of one such narrative. The story of Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts (“like the Cambodian dictator?” a nurse inquires in the opening scene), One Chance often feels more like the adaptation of a much-loved novel than an attempt to tell a true story.

Sing when you’re winning…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Britain's Got Talent, Corden, David Frankel, James Corden, Justin Zackham, Luciano Pavarotti, Oceania, One Chance, Paul Potts, Potts, Programmes, Programs, reality television, Reality-Based, Sitcom, Television | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Saving Mr. Banks

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Darren

“I’m tired of remembering it that way,” Walt Disney admits of his childhood at the climax of Saving Mr. Banks, in a rare moment of personal candour. There are moments when Saving Mr. Banks seems to come very close to working – exploring the link that exists between memory and imagination. In a way, that’s very much what Walt Disney was all about, adapting and renovating classic stories in such a way that they seemed to be more the stories that we wanted to hear than the stories that we remember.

Unfortunately, for too much of its runtime, Saving Mr. Banks serves more of an example of the process of “imagineering” that an exploration of it.

It’s not quite tell-all-vision…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: banks, Bradley Whitford, disney, Mary Poppin, Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers, Saving Mr. Banks, tom hanks, Travers, Walt Disney, Walt Disney Company | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Escape Plan

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Darren

Escape Plan doesn’t demand too much. It doesn’t demand too much from its lead actors, and it doesn’t demand too much from its audience. A film about watching two of the biggest action stars of the eighties teaming up should be a celebratory occasion – a trip down memory lane, one last go-around for old time’s sake as we watch this dynamic duo escape a mysterious “off the grid” prison which seems quite like the place I imagined all eighties action stars go in the end.

Instead, Escape Plan feels like the middle section of John Woo’s Face/Off extended out to a two-hour feature film, the story of a man who shouldn’t be in prison forced to escape from a futuristic science-fiction gulag through a series of overly-elaborate action set-pieces. There is, quite frankly, not enough here to support the movie’s extended runtime, with the script never daring to swerve sharply away from expectations or clichés. Escape Plan delivers exactly what the premise promises, but nothing more and never with anything approaching enthusiasm.

Old-timer hard-timers…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Amy Ryan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Demand, EscapePlan, expendables, Jim Caviezel, Julian Assange, Rocky Balboa, Schwarzenegger, sony, Sound Shapes, sylvester stallone | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Enough Said

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Darren

Enough Said is a charming little romantic comedy starring Julia Louise-Dreyfuss as Eva. Eva is a divorced parent who finds herself in the relationship with another charming divorcée, navigating the difficulties of dating-after-marriage and trying to come to terms with her daughter’s impending departure to attend college. Through what another character describes as “an unbelievable coincidence”, our protagonist finds herself in a delightfully awkward romantic situation, trapped between two people very close to her.

Enough Said owes a debt to the classic romantic farce – the comedy of errors and manners – but the humour here is a lot more focused and character-driven. Once the plot becomes clear, it seems like Enough Said might devolve into a slapstick comedy about timing and awkward double entendres, but it’s to the credit of writer and director Nicole Holofcener that the film instead remains tightly focused on Eva and the people around her.

Stepping up…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Albert, Ben Falcone, Catherine Keener, Enough Said, Eva, film, Gandolfini, james gandolfini, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nicole Holofcener, Relationships, Romantic comedy film, toni collette | Leave a comment »

Win! Tickets to Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa with ClickOnline Movie Nights!

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Darren

Thanks to the lovely folds over at ClickOnline Movie Nights, we have a pair of tickets to give away to a preview screening of Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa next Monday night (21st October) in Rathmines. To be in for a chance to win, just fill out the form below.

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The guys at ClickOnline have been doing a bunch of these screenings – their last one was a screening of the horror film of the summer, The Conjuring – so head on over to their site to sign up to be kept up to date.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Conjuring, Jackass, Johnny Knoxville, Movie, Rathmines, Record label, United States | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Captain Phillips

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Darren

Captain Phillips is the tensest thriller of the year, no small accomplishment when you consider that director Paul Greengrass and writer Billy Ray are working from a high-profile true story that unfolded across media less than a decade ago. “This story is getting a play here,” a naval negotiator is advised a little over half-way into the film, and it’s hard to imagine that anybody going to see the film isn’t loosely familiar with the events (and outcome) of this Somali pirate attack.

Despite this, Greengrass manages to ratchet up the tension on Captain Phillips, turning it into a high-stakes thriller. Even knowing the inevitable outcome, Greengrass pushes the audience to the edge of their seats, refusing to allow the movie to throttle down from the moment that two unidentified blips appear on the trawler’s sonar screen.

Movie piracy really is bad…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Billy Ray, Captain Phillips, Catherine Keener, Greengrass, Maersk Alabama hijacking, Muse, Paul Greengrass, Phillips, Piracy in Somalia, Tom Hank, tom hanks | 8 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Barbaric Genius

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Darren

Barbaric Genius has a fascinating subject. Writer John Healy was responsible for The Grass Arena, generally regarded as one of the most searingly and brutally honest depictions of life on the streets published during the eighties. However, despite the fact that The Grass Arena became a touchstone for an entire generation and that it was so successful that it was developed into a film, Healy faded rather quickly from view. Despite writing consistently over the years that followed, none of Healy’s work was published for more than two decades following the 1988 release of The Grass Arena.

It’s an intriguing mystery, and Barbaric Genius does a thorough job exploring it, but the documentary suffers a bit as it tries to bring its subject into focus, often feeling like director/producer/narrator Paul Duane is having difficulty getting the necessary distance between himself and the film.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: art, arts, business, Documentary film, Duane, film, Grass Arena, Healy, history, John Healy, Movie, non-review review review, Paul Duane, review, The Grass Arena: An Autobiography | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Turbo

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Darren

Turbo is the best animated movie of 2013, well worth coming out of your shell to see. It’s probably the best Dreamworks film since Kung-Fu Panda and the best CGI animated feature since Toy Story 3. Indeed, Turbo manages to evoke a lot of the charming early Pixar films, in particular channelling Ratatouille, as we follow the adventures of one common unloved animal who decides that “good enough” is not quite good enough.

Stop the clock…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, arts, dreamworks, Indianapolis 500, kung-fu panda, Kurtwood Smith, michael pena, Movies, paul giamatti, Ratatouille, ryan reynolds, Snail, Tito, toy story 3, Turbo | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Fifth Estate

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Darren

The ink is still fresh on The Fifth Estate, although perhaps that is too outdated a metaphor. The code is yet to be debugged might be more appropriate. History has yet to really decide what it will make of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Cyber freedom fighters, the internet generation’s Woodward and Burnstein? Or reckless and disconnected kids failing to realise that writing on screen can have very real consequences? “Editing reflects bias,” we’re reminded early in the film, perhaps a concession that that the movie can’t get the necessary distance to offer a definitive (or even especially nuanced) take on Assange and his revolution.

The Fifth Estate comes down quite hard against Assange, essentially reducing Benedict Cumberbatch’s white-haired technological genius to something like a Bond villain. Director Bill Condon struggles to make typing code look sexy with laboured metaphors. And yet, despite that, there’s a willingness here to engage with something big and bold and important, however clumsily the script grapples with the implications of Wikileaks.

The result is something far more compelling that the dire Diana. Diana was a film so close to its subject that it couldn’t muster any enthusiasm or offer anything approaching a challenging opinion. The Fifth Estate is too close to its subject matter, and it clumsily stumbles into obvious bias and slant, but it’s still an intriguing attempt to parse a new media that it seems Hollywood doesn’t really understand.

He’s Assange one, that one…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bill Condon, contemporary, film, Julian Assange, Movies, non-review review, review, the fifth estate, thriller politics, Wikileaks | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Runner Runner

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Darren

Runner Runner feels like it should be a lot more fun than it winds up being. For a film about gambling, it lays the cards on the table pretty quickly. It’s a story about an ambitious young man who is offered wealth and success, only to eventually discover that the price is nothing less than his soul. As such, our plucky young hero has to keep all the plates spinning as the walls close in around him, trying to keep his head above water and the wolves from his door. There are, of course, other clichés I can throw in there, but these will do for now.

As such, Runner Runner isn’t about originality or insight, borrowing heavily from far better character studies and morality plays – even the casting of Justin Timberlake as a nerdy internet-savvy college student feels like a riff on his role in The Social Network. Runner Runner is all about the execution of these familiar high concepts and plot points. Unfortunately, the movie never seems too invested in its stakes, or too engaged with the game it is playing. When the chips are down, Runner Runner can nothing but fold.