Movies | the m0vie blog

“Must Do Better”: Dramatic Talents & Wasted Potential…

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Darren

There’s something very sad about Eddie Murphy. His latest movie, A Thousand Words, opened last Friday in the States with an almost impressive 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That means that there wasn’t a single reviewer who though that the movie was even “okay”, let alone “good” or “great.” It’s are to find a film that can generate such a consensus, although I don’t think anybody was especially astounded that Eddie Murphy headlined a comedy that was frustrating and disappointing. Of course, he has undoubtedly made a lot of money, and has decided that this is what he wants to do, but there’s something very frustrating about actors like Eddie Murphy, who have demonstrated uncanny ability, but seem willing to settle for generic film after generic film.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: adam sandler, animation, arts, Beverly Hills Cop, brad pitt, Dave, eddiemurphy, Friday, hollywood, Jack McCall, jim carrey, Meet Dave, Movies, Murphy, oscar, reviews, rotten tomatoes | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Raging Bull

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Darren

I might disagree with the critical consensus that Raging Bull stands as Martin Scorsese’s crowning accomplishment, or even that it’s probably the best film of the eighties, but there’s no denying that it’s a shockingly powerful piece of cinema. The fact that Scorsese was originally reluctant to direct what had become a passion project for Robert DeNiro just makes the movie’s status as a masterpiece of modern cinema all the more ironic, as the film seems to play like a pitch perfect symphony, each of its many separate elements feeding perfectly into one another to create a whole that is far greater than its incredibly brilliant constituent elements.

The portrait of the boxer as a young man...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Boston Celtics, Bull, business, Carlos Boozer, Chicago Bulls, Domestic violence, godfather, Jake LaMotta, Joakim Noah, Joe Lewis, Joey, LaMotta, Luol Deng, martin scorsese, Raging Bull, Rajon Rondo, robert deniro, scorsese, Taj Gibson, Tennessee Williams, Wizard of Oz | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: We Bought a Zoo

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Darren

The biggest problem facing We Bought a Zoo is that it can’t ever decide how serious a family drama it wants to be. It follows a family recovering from the loss of their mother by purchasing a zoo and attempting to renovate it, and it never finds a healthy balance between the shamelessly upbeat montage-set-to-classic-pop “live your crazy dreams!” feel-good fun and the heavier subject of a family finding piece. The result is a movie that often feels a little toosweet and a little too earnest at the same time, and never manages to mix the two tones with a great deal of success.

Not quite out of the park...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Cameron Crowe, Crowe, drama, Elle Fanning, family, film, films, Jónsi, Jerry Maguire, matt damon, Movies, non-review review, review, scarlett johansson, Thomas Haden Church, We Bought a Zoo, Zoology | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: John Carter

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Darren

I really enjoyed John Carter for what it was. In a way, the movie feels quite a bit like its lead character, a Confederate soldier yanked off Earth and dumped in another very strange setting. This movie feels like a seventies or eighties science-fiction epic, mercilessly plucked from the era of pulpy high-tech fantasy and transposed to a more cynical modern time. Whether or not you will enjoy John Carter will depend entirely on your taste for big-budget science-fiction epics. Those who favour a wry and self-aware approach to their wild interplanetary adventures will likely go home unsatisfied. However, those who can embrace an earnest and straight-faced adaptation of a science-fiction classic will find much to enjoy. You can guess which camp I fell into, even if I could acknowledge the movie’s significant shortcomings.

Warlord of Mars...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Andrew Stanton, Confederate States Army, david lynch, Earth, Edgar Rice Burrough, Edgar Rice Burroughs, film, george lucas, hollywood, james cameron, John Carter, john carter of mars, mark strong, Michael Giacchino, Movie, non-review review, Princess of Mars, r eview, science fiction, Taylor Kitsch, The Walt Disney Company | 11 Comments »

That Pivotal Second Viewing…

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Darren

As a film blogger, I tend to write reviews of films that I have never seen before. I occasionally take the opportunity to share my thoughts on classic films I have seen countless times, but most of my writing covers films I’ve only seen once. In some cases, that will be the first and only time that I see a movie. I have, for example, no desire to ever site through This Means War again. However, I occasionally find the second viewing of a film to be a much more enlightening and inspiring film, whether it crystalises my original opinion or perhaps even prompts a re-evaluation of my earlier thoughts. It’s interesting how different and distinct a film can appear each time you happen to watch it.

Twice the excitement...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, batman returns, burton, chris pine, Corpse Bride, Cultures and Groups, danny elfman, disney, Edward Scissorhands, film, Frankenweenie, Mars Attacks!, michael sheen, Movie, quentin tarantino, Reese Witherspoon, review, Sarah Palin, screenwriter, This Means War, tim burton, tom hardy, tron, tron: legacy | 14 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Reservoir Dogs

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Darren

I had the pleasure of attending the Jameson Cult Film Club screening of this film.

Reservoir Dogs is my favourite film amongst Quentin Tarantino’s accomplished filmography. It seems a strange choice, as most film fans would concede that it’s pretty great, but would readily point to Pulp Fiction as the definitive Tarantino film. However, I think that Reservoir Dogs has an elegant simplicity that elevates it, allowing Tarantino to demonstrate his unique skills in an environment where he isn’t too confined or too rigidly structured. In a way, it’s that wonderful structure that makes Pulp Fiction so exceptional, but Reservoir Dogs has a relatively modest scale that makes it a lot easier to appreciate Tarantino’s deft mastery of form.

Whiter than White?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Brown, Cuba Gooding, film, harvey keitel, harvye keitel, jasonreitman, madonna, Movie, mr blue, mr. blond, mr. blonde, mr. orange, mr. pink, mr. white, neo-noir, noir, Orange, pulp fiction, quentin tarantino, quentintarantino, Reservoir Dogs, revie, Robbery, steve buscemi, tarantino, w non-review review, White | 4 Comments »

Film Festival Fatigue & True Cinematic Love…

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Darren

I had the pleasure of attending the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival a few weeks back, and it was an intense pleasure. Two weeks of the celebration of the best of film, both new and old, national and international, big and small. However, as I caught thirty different film-related events over ten days, while still working regular hours, I couldn’t help but fight a sense of fatigue – getting up early to commute to Dublin for the festival and getting home at the strangest hours to write a few words and nod off for a few hours before beginning again. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I do wonder if that sort of thing could ever get so tiring that I might sired of writing about or watching movies? I wonder if I’ll ever suffer what might be described as “film fatigue.”

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: art, Baraka, Bel Ami, dublin, film, Film festival, Fort McCoy Wisconsin, france, jameson dublin international film festival, Movie, toronto, United States | 2 Comments »

John Carter is Marred: Thoughts on Big-Budget Schadenfreude & Film Media Hypocrisy…

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Darren

Everybody is talking about Disney’s John Carter. And not in a good way. It seems that everybody is talking about the project’s huge budget and poor marketing, with many news outlets taking an obscene amount of pleasure in declaring Andrew Stanton’s live action project dead on arrival. Some have even started making comparisons to Waterworld, another science-fiction epic with a huge budget that failed to find an audience. In the interest of honesty, I haven’t seen the film yet; I am cautiously optimistic, but I can’t help but worry about the film. Still, I can’t help but feel like this is an example of an hypocritical “damned if do, damned if you don’t” logic from film writers and journalists all over the web, who seem to be salivating at the prospect of a huge studio being humbled by a blockbuster that might mess up the landing. The irony being that these are probably the same people who frequently deride the “safe” and “obvious” choices for blockbuster films, bemoaning the fact that directors like Guillermo Del Toro aren’t given the budget to make the films they want to make.

Does anybody "get" Carter?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Andrew Stanton, disney, Edgar Rice Burroughs, guillermo del toro, hollywood, John Carter, oscar, Princess of Mars, Tars Tarkas, Taylor Kitsch, The Walt Disney Company, willem dafoe | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: 21 Jump Street

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Darren

The review was embargoed until the 5th March 2012.

The obvious point of comparison to Jonah Hill’s big-screen adaptation of 21 Jump Street is the Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson version of Starsky & Hutch. After all, both take classic cult television shows and recycle them for modern audiences, taking dramatic plot devices that seem hilarious and goofy in hindsight and playing them as straight comedy. There is, however, one very crucial difference between that adaptation of a seventies cop show and this adaptation of an eighties cop show: 21 Jump Street works. Mostly.

White knights...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 21 Jump Street, 21 Jump Street (film), 21 Jump Street (movie), arts, ben stiller, Channing Tatum, Darren, Dave Franco, film, johnny depp, jonah hill, Michael Bacall, Movie, Owen Wilson, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, review, starsky and hutch | 14 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Darren

While Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters might get a little bit too crazy and twisty in its final third, but it’s a brilliantly dark Norwegian thriller/comedy, headlined with considerable style by Aksel Hennie as corporate recruitment expert Roger Brown, a sleazy yuppie living well beyond his means to keep his wife in the style two which she has become accustomed. As the movie puts Brown through a sequence of painful and humiliating encounters, it is consistently entertaining, managing to walk the fine line between making sure we dislike Roger enough to be amused by his misfortune, but invested enough that we want to see the little (“1.68 metres”) bugger manage to escape the movie relatively intact.