Movies | the m0vie blog

“It’s None of Your Damn Business What I Think About That”: Tarantino and the Limits of Film Directors…

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Darren

It’s a clip that’s gone viral. Tarantino lashing out at Channel 4 interviewer Krishnan Guru-Murthy has become something of in internet touchstone. “I’m shutting your butt down,” the director protests after getting another of those inevitable questions about the link between movie violence and real-life violence. It’s cringeworthy and awkward, and it plays into Guru-Murthy’s hands better than a straight answer would have, but I can’t help but empathise with Tarantino’s position.

Incidents like the shooting in Aurora or Connecticut shooting are truly horrifying and very hard for us to contextualise. I can understand Tarantino not wanting to get into that debate, because it’s really not the place of anybody involved in cinema to talk about it. It’s arrogant for anybody with any film background to try to relate their work to it, and it’s negligent of any journalist to try to sensationalise a link between film violence and real violence when the real questions are tougher, more uncompromising and more uncomfortable than a quick jab at Tarantino.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Anthony Lane, Channel 4, Daily Mail, Dark Knight Rises, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, London, Nikki Finke, People, quentin tarantino, tarantino, Violence and Abuse, women | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Les Misérables

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Darren

It’s hard not to admire Les Misérables. It’s the first honest-to-goodness entirely sincere and mostly unironic big budget musical that we’ve seen released in quite some time. While song and dance will always be a part of the movies (The Muppets, for example, carrying many a dainty tune last year), there’s something quite impressive about seeing a music as epic and as iconic as Les Misérables carried across to the big screen. The stage musical became something of a cultural phenomenon on the West End, and Tom Hooper does an effective job of transitioning from stage to screen – even if he doesn’t consistently capitalise on the format shift.

There are some fundamental problems. The second half is a little too awkwardly paced and too disjointed to come together as well as it should, and Hooper seems to have a great deal pitching the right amount of camp (and humour) for an Oscar-bait musical about the aftermath of the French revolution. However, if you can look past those problems, the opening half is a superbly staged musical and the performances are impressive. Including the much maligned Russell Crowe, who might – hear me out – be the best thing about the film.

Sing when you’re winning… or at least nominated…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Amanda Seyfried, anne hathaway, art, film, helena bonham carter, Hooper, hugh jackman, jason segel, Jean Valjean, Les Misérables, Movie, Muppet, muppets, Musical theatre, non-review, paris, Performing Arts, review, russell crowe, sacha baron cohen, Samantha Barks, Tom Hooper | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Gangster Squad

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Darren

To suggest that Gangster Squad favours style over substance feels like an understatement. Although the prologue claims that Gangster Squad was “inspired” by the true story of Mickey Cohen, it seems to favour mythic figures and sweeping action over real characters and nuanced drama. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. For most of its runtime, Gangster Squad feels like a trashy and update of a forties or fifties B-movie, cheap and nasty far executed with enough speed and charm to entertain. Occasionally the movie seems to falter – it clumsily attempts to shoehorn in some social commentary into this bright and colourful vigilante tale – but director Ruben Fleischer works well to keep things balanced. The wheels come off a bit towards the end, as Fleischer demonstrates he handles atmosphere better than action, but for most of its runtime Gangster Squad is a diverting piece of cheesy nostalgia.

This new plan is working gangbusters!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Emma Stone, film, Fleischer, Gangster Squad, hollywood, los angeles, michael mann, Mickey Cohen, Movie, non-review review, public enemies, review, Ruben Fleischer, Ryan Gosling, sean penn | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Hitchcock

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Darren

As a bit of a film fan (and a bit of a Hitchcock fan), Hitchcock had me interested. After all, Hitchcock’s Psycho is arguably among the most important films ever made, both creating an entire subgenre (“the slasher”) and imbuing it with artistic credibility at the same time. The production of Psycho was not only a huge gambit for Hitchcock, but it was also an incredibly difficult task for the auteur to accomplish. Hitchcock was sixty when Psycho was eventually released. It’s easy to imagine a director at that age resting on his laurels, and Hitchcock really works when it explores the drives of the talented film maker, willing to look at the implications of those drives and how the same things that made him one of the world’s greatest directors may also have made him a less-than-nice person.

Hitchcock occasionally gets a bit too cluttered with domestic drama, but it features two strong performances and a fascinating true story. It might not be as exceptional as it could have been, but it’s still a damn fine exploration of movie history.

Alma matters?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alfred hitchcock, Alma Reville, anthony hopkins, Birds, Ed Gein, helen mirren, hitchcock, Movies, Psycho, Robert Bloch, scarlett johansson, Tippi Hedren | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Impossible

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Darren

The Impossible looks and sounds fantastic. It is very well put together by J.A. Bayona. Cleverly opting to use practical effects wherever possible, and shooting on a gigantic water tank, Bayona provides a visceral experience worthy of any blockbuster disaster movie. Indeed, were The Impossible based on fictitious events, it might be enough to make it a powerful and emotional film. Unfortunately, as the film is so desperate to let you know (placing “true story” captions at the beginning and the end of the movie), The Impossible is based on the true story of a tsunami that caused untold damage to Thailand displacing up to 60,000 residents.

Without spoiling anything, The Impossible ends with the shot of a plane crossing the ocean, a voyage home. There’s no real sense of any of the lasting consequences of the truly horrific disaster that befell the countries in the Indian Ocean.

It’s a washout…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Bayona, christmas, ewan mcgregor, film, Impossible, Indian Ocean, JA Bayona, Juan Antonio Bayona, Movie, Naomi Watts, non-review review, review, Thailand, Tom Holland | 7 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Die Hard

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Darren

I know it’s a bit cliché at this point, but Die Hard really is my family’s ultimate Christmas movie. The season hasn’t truly started (or, if we’re delayed, truly ended) until all of us have sat down on the couch and indulged in the seasonal spectacular. Even if you don’t quite buy into the “Die Hard as Christmas movie” argument, it’s still impressive how tall John McTiernan’s action movie stands when compared to the bulk of eighties action films. Like Nakatomi Plaza itself, it towers over the competition – and it’s not because it does anything especially or novel or innovative in a genre that has always been fairly conservative. Instead, I’d argue, Die Hard succeeds because it executes all the conventional action movie beats exceedingly well, and because it doesn’t treat any of its plot points as necessary items on a check list.

Jump-starting Bruce Willis’ action career…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Action film, bruce willis, christmas, Christmas by medium, die hard, Fox Plaza (Los Angeles), john mcclane, John McTiernan, los angeles, Los Angeles Police Department, McClane, sylvester stallone | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Flight

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Darren

Flight has a lot to recommend it. It has an interesting subject, a fantastic central performance and wonderful supporting cast. As a result, it’s a shame that the movie makes such a mess of all these things. Flight is never less than interesting and Washington is always watchable, but it isn’t quite as compelling as a two-hour drama film needs to be. Director Robert Zemeckis struggles a bit with the tone of the piece, and Flight seems to be a bit all over the place, making it quite difficult to enjoy and hard to engage with.

Things are looking up…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Accidents, Aviation, bruce greenwood, denzel washington, don cheadle, Flight International, Icelandair, jfk, john goodman, Kelly Reilly, Movies, Passenger, robert zemeckis, Ron Marsico, Tamara Tunie, Transportation, Washington, Whitaker | Leave a comment »

Birthing Hips Sink Ships: Dark Shadows & Improbable Feminism…

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Darren

I will concede that I am fonder of Dark Shadows than most. I’ve been disappointed with a lot of Tim Burton’s recent output, but something about his revival of the seventies soap opera worked strangely well. I’ll be the first to concede that it’s pretty esoteric. After all, like Casa de mi Padre, it’s effectively one single joke stretched across a film’s runtime. However, I couldn’t help but warm to it, at least because it seemed like Burton was enjoying himself a lot more than head been with films like Alice in Wonderland. There was something quite cheeky about it, from the way that it portrayed its central character as ridiculously unheroic through to the fact that it was perhaps the year’s most subversive feminist film.

Indeed, watching the film again this weekend, it struck me just how feminist the narrative actually was, despite the somewhat superficial distractions from that.

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Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: Angelique, Angelique Bouchard Collins, arts, Barnaba, Barnabas, Christopher Lee, Dark Shadow, Dark Shadows, Elizabeth, Hoffman, horror, johnny depp, Programs, Soap opera, Television, tim burton, Victoria | 2 Comments »

My 12 for ’12: The Dark Knight Rises & Blockbusters with Brains…

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Darren

I’m counting down my top twelve films of the year between now and January, starting at #12 and heading to #1. I expect the list to be a little bit predictable, a little bit surprising, a little bit of everything. All films released in the UK and Ireland in 2012 qualify. Sound off below, and let me know if I’m on the money, or if I’m completely off the radar. And let me know your own picks or recommendations.

This is #1…

There’s a popular idea that just because a movie makes a lot of money, or just because it attracts a large audience, or just because it features fantastical elements, that it is somehow unworthy of discussion and debate. The Dark Knight Rises has been a divisive film, sparking a lot of debate about its relative merits and those of Christopher Nolan, the director and co-writer. Following on from the massive success of The Dark Knight, Nolan opted for an unconventional approach for his sequel. Structurally and tonally, The Dark Knight Rises represented a significant departure from The Dark Knight. While the The Dark Knight had been an urban crime thriller exploring the wake of 9/11, The Dark Knight Rises was an epic social drama pondering how divided American society had become.

It isn’t quite as fantastic as The Dark Knight, but it was strong, bold, vibrant and challenging film making – proof that budget does not belie brains.

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Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: bane, batman, batman begins, British Isles, Bruce, Christopher Nolan, ChristopherNolan, dark knight, Dark Knight Rises, DarkKnight Rises, film, Forbes, Guardian, Lykke Li, Mitt Romney, Moonrise Kingdom, Movie, Muppet, nolan, Silver Linings Playbook | 6 Comments »

Watch! The Full 1985 Version of The Hobbit! In Russian!

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Darren

Okay, since there’s no subtitles this is sort of a bit of a niche thing, but I found it and thought I’d pass it on.

Below is the full 1985 version of The Hobbit produced for Russian television. It is… a little less impressive than Peter Jackson’s adaptation, and not just because it’s in less than 48 frames per second and two dimensions. Still, I kinda admire the ambition of it, even if the results are less than spectacular. Check out how they take down Smaug, for an example, or the way that the action cuts back to the “narrator” before any expensive shots are required.

The whole thing calls to mind the sort of stuff the BBC were doing with Doctor Who at the time, and I can’t quite hate it. After all, the matte paintings are great and at least it seems committed to an idea that would have been technically quite difficult for a big-budget movie of the time, let alone state television.

Check it out below and let me know what you think!