Movies | the m0vie blog

Fresh Perspectives: Classic Directors and Not-so-Classic Films…

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Darren

I caught Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety at the weekend, and I have to admit, I liked it. I’d only heard the movie mentioned in passing from time to time, never discussed with the same reverence as Space Balls or Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein, but never with the same bitterness as Dracula: Dead and Loving It. It never really made it on to any conscious “to see” list with any of the great works from iconic directors. However, I really enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t consider it a forgotten classic, or a misunderstood gem overlooked in Brooks’ impressive filmography. It has its flaws and problems, but I enjoyed it. In fact, while I wouldn’t consider on par with some of his stronger films, I dare say that I actually enjoyed it more than some of them, despite the fact I hadn’t heard that much about it. In fact, I can’t help but wonder if I enjoyed it more because I hadn’t heard that much about it.

High expectations can lead to monstrous results...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Annie Hall, arts, DVD, Mel Brooks, Movies, Social Network, the godfather, Woody Allen, Young Frankenstein | 33 Comments »

Non-Review Review: High Anxiety

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Darren

I quite enjoyed High Anxiety, even if it didn’t rank quite as high as some of Brooks’ other efforts. While it still possesses the same wonderful wry moments, High Anxiety is a Mel Brooks film that arguably works better as a farce than as a parody. I suspect that this has something to do with the director’s intended target. While Westerns were ripe for mockery in Blazing Saddles and old horror films were perfectly suited to the sense of humour in Young Frankenstein, it always seemed like Alfred Hitchcock was aware of his own filmmaking style, and seemed to occasionally be gently mocking it himself, rather than playing his heightened suspense with a po-faced sincerity. I think that parody and satire work best when they represent an attack on a target that suffers from a little bit too much self-importance, while Hitchcock’s films are generally a little more self-aware than that.

Gone to the birds?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alfred hitchcock, Birds, Blazing Saddles, High Anxiety, hitchcock, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, non-review review, parody, Psycho, review, Young Frankenstein | Leave a comment »

Right In Time: Are Some Concepts Just Too Silly For Movies?

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Darren

I think it’s happened to all of us at some point. We see a poster for a film, or the start of a trailer that looks fascinating – all the right talent is involved to grab our attention, the technical stuff looks well-executed, it’s stylish and smart… and then we catch the plot of the film. It’s a plot that kind of makes us pause, drawing an almost unconscious, “huh?” from our collective lips. Maybe we read it twice to try to make some sense out of it, but there’s no joy. It still sounds as absolutely and impossibly silly as it did when we first read of the plot. It has happened to me quite a few times over the years, as I’ve found myself wondering how the hell such a concept could work on the big screen. I’ll confess, it happened when I read the plot summary for In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol, which drew this appropriate response…

More at The Shiznit...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Adjustment Bureau, Andrew Niccol, arts, Charlie Kaufman, Day of the Triffids, film, huh?, In time, liam neeson, Lone Ranger, Manhattan, richard donner, superman, superman ii, suspension of disbelief, wait... what?, what?, wtf | 31 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Targets

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Darren

Targets still feels quite a bit ahead of its time, which is quite something for a film intended to transition between the classic horror monster movies and the more sinister and grounded modern horrors. Indeed, Boris Karloff’s last starring role seems to prefigure a shift in the type of horror movies flooding the cinemas, years ahead of the more iconic and mundane “slasher” icons who succeeded Dracula and Frankenstein as the monsters at the matinée. Targets is an intriguing and remarkable little film, charmingly understanded and perhaps appealing for the lack of pomp it attempts to generate.

The horror!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Béla Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Bryon Orlok, dracula, film, frankenstein, jack nicholson, Karloff, Martin Luther King, Movie, non-review review, Orlok, Peter Bogdanovich, review, Roger Corman, Targets, Terror, The Terror (film) | Leave a comment »

Critical Revisionism: Retrospective Re-Evaluation…

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Darren

It’s funny. I always figured that long-term critical re-evaluation was sort of a one-way street. I guess it always seemed that people were talking about “classics” that got an unfair rap from critics and audiences on initial release, but have subsequently become amongst the most influential films within their genre. I’m talking about movies like Blade Runner or The Thing, movies that were attacked on initial release, but have undergone a massive transformation and vindication in popular consciousness. I generally figured that good films that got bad reviews would eventually be found and praised for the quality productions that they were, while over-praised mediocre (or worse) films would languish in purgatory, forgotten about, save the occasional television re-run. So I’m surprised at the way the tide seems to have turned against Juno in the five years since the film’s original release.

Well, that's one response...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Academy Award for Best Picture, arts, Blu-ray Disc, David Edelstein, diablo cody, film, george lucas, Golden Globe, Golden Globe Award, Internet Movie Database, juno, Movie, no country for old men, review, rotten tomatoes, star wars, Top Lists | 2 Comments »

You’d Be Muppets To Say No: Let the Muppets Host the Oscars…

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Darren

UPDATE: Well, time marches on. Sometimes by the hour. It’s Billy Crystal. Not that I expected the gang to get a look-in. Still, I think the points stand.

There are days when it seems like the internet is about to explode. Somebody has a random thought, posts it or shares it, and it just catches on like wildfire. Before you know it, it seems like half the world is saying “that’s actually not a bad idea!” and the other half is saying “that’s a great idea!” The campaign to have the Muppets host the Oscars is one of those things that has just come to life, like a phoenix from the ashes of Brett Ratner’s resignation and Eddie Murphy’s departure. I generally don’t comment on these things, because they speak for themselves, and I don’t like to just run a post saying “everything these guys are saying is true!”, but this is the exception rather than the rule. I want to see the Muppets host the Oscars. I know it isn’t going to happen, but damn if it isn’t the most outrageous, ambitious and insane idea that has been suggested.

And that, my friends, is exactly why it should happen, even if it probably won’t.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Bob Hope, eddie murphy, hugh jackman, James Franco, Muppet, Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Oscars, oscar | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Staten Island

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Darren

Staten Island is a convoluted little film that seems to shameless emulate several anthology films, with the most obvious influence being seen in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, borrowing the device of telling three interlocking but distinct stories set in different timeframes relating to the same bunch of characters. Still, that’s not necessarily a reason to dislike the film, which manages to offer an interesting, if not comparable, set of tales. James DeMonaco probably should have realised that borrowing so heavily from a classic film sets a ridiculously high standard, and one the movie falls far short of reaching. Still, there are moments where the film does work, even if they seem evenly-spaced with awkward and pointless sequences.

One psychotic mobster, sitting in a tree...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: ethan hawke, film, Little New York, Manhattan, Movie, New York City, non-review review, pulp fiction, quentin tarantino, review, Seymour Cassel, Staten Island, Vincent D'Onofrio | Leave a comment »

Who Spoils the Spoilers? On the Right Not to Be Spoiled…

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Darren

Apparently, spoilers are good for you. Well, that’s what one survey from August suggests:

UC San Diego psychology researchers Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt wanted to test if being spoiled hurt someone’s enjoyment of a story. So they took 30 test subjects and let them read 12 short stories by famous authors like John Updike, Roald Dahl, Anton Chekhov, Agatha Christie and Raymond Carver. Some they just read straight, others they read with a paragraph beforehand that ruined the ending or major twist in the piece. In almost all of those cases, the reader liked the story more when they were spoiled.

Published way back in August, this generated quite a bit of on-line discussion, and a lot of people were quick to suggest that the logic held true for movies as well, and modern blockbusters at that. It seems like a ready-made defense for those posting a constant stream of spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises, or leaking plot twists for various popular television shows. However, I’m not necessarily convinced by this logic.

This survey is suspect…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Agatha Christie, Anton Chekhov, film spoilers, francis ford coppola, John Updike, movie spoilers, Movies, Nicholas Christenfeld, Raymond Carver, roald dahl, Short story, spoilers, spoiling, University of California San Diego | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Warrior’s Way

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Darren

I don’t think that pulpy nostalgia lends itself particularly well to cinematic reimagining. We’ve seen a variety of high-concept mish-mashes on the big screen in the past decade or so. There was a time when Freddie vs. Jason was confined to the bargain basement of your local DVD store, but we’ve seen major theatrical releases like Cowboys & Aliens or Aliens vs. Predators in the past number of years – all based around the idea that you can pit a cool concept against another cool concept and the resulting movie will be “super-cool.” Essentially an opportunity to answer the age-old question of “who would win in a fight between cowboys and ninjas”, The Warrior’s Way has a few really enjoyable and gleefully silly moments, but they tend to get lost in the midst of an overly-stylised and too-heavily-green-screen-ed moments, with a skilled cast unable to inject life into a range of characters who are struggling to reach the second dimension.

Give it a stab?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Computer-generated imagery, Danny Huston, Dong-gun Jang, Ennio Morricone, film, Geoffrey Rush, guillermo del toro, kate bosworth, non-review review, review, Spaghetti Western, the warriors way, Warrior's Ways | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Moneyball

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Darren

I know nothing of baseball. Unlike the other great American sporting pastime of American Football (or, I guess, “football” to them), I simply can’t wrap my head around the activity, which seems (to me) to be a strange mix of rounders and the imaginary “whack bat” from The Fantastic Mr. Fox (which was undoubtedly intended as a parody of cricket, to mix my metaphors even further). It takes a lot for me to invest in a movie about an activity that I can barely comprehend, and Moneyball accomplishes that, by managing to craft one of the most telling and relevent sporting movies I’ve seen in quite some time. I think the film does struggle to establish an emotional connection, but it’s a very clever and very intriguing little movie.