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Trailer Talk: Views on Previews…

I love a good film story. Not necessarily a story about the inner workings of Hollywood or who is starring in what, more a story about how the film industry is working, relating to regular folks, engaging with audiences and about how the experience of going to the cinema may or may not change. So things like complaints about popcorn or iPhone movie apps excite me as much as pondering the true meaning of Inception or discussing the ending of Shutter Island. So, a particular story grabbed my attention over the weekend. Apparently a woman in China is suing cinemas for wasting her time with pointless advertisements. It’s certainly a story which grabbed my attention: 

Chen Xiaomei, a lawyer in Shaanxi Province, filed the lawsuit arguing that audiences were given no warning or indication on the ticket that ads before the film would run on for 20 minutes. That’s like almost an entire sitcom episode… of ads. Not only did this waste movie goers’ time, it also “violated their right to know and to choose.” 

I can certainly sympathise. 

Some of these ads can be quite (pop)corn-y...

 

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Non-Review Review: Terminator Salvation

There are perhaps some franchises which really shouldn’t endure after the departure of the creative brain behind the operation. Some would argue that The West Wing should have ended after Aaron Sorkin departed, and I would argue that Warner Brothers should probably reboot Batman after Nolan leaves, rather than continuing his saga (since there’s no way they’ll let that franchise lie fallow). Terminator is perhaps another example. The first two films are iconic, towering science-fiction masterpieces which perfectly blend big ideas with visceral thrills – The Terminator is a tightly constructed urban thriller, while Terminator 2: Judgement Day helped define what a blockbuster should look like. However, once Cameron departed, the franchise was somehow allowed to continue limping on. After the really awful Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, I was willing to let the series die. However, somehow we got a fourth movie. And, despite all my misgivings and preconceptions, it isn’t bad. It isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible.

Sam Worthington needs a Bale-out...

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Non-Review Review: The Bounty Hunter

It’s a movie which stars Gerard Butler as a bounty hunter. It should at least feature infinitely greater amounts of gratuitous violence, even if it was always going to be just this boring.

If you want to get revenge on a partner, you can take them to jail... or you can make them watch The Bounty Hunter...

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Non-Review Review: Funny People

Funny People is the very definition of “self-indulgent”. It’s a series of comedians from both the big leagues – movie stars – and the smaller circles – the improv stand-up circuit – reflecting on how difficult life is for an entertainer. Be it the generalisation that showbiz types are all cynical and disconnected to the point of being anhedonic, or the observation that fame and success typically come with a high personal cost. Of course, coming from director Judd Atapow – who carved out his earlier career with comedies centred on everyman (okay, maybe “slacker”) types like Knocked-Up or The Forty-Year-Old Virgin – a film about the types of circles that he moved in was a risky venture, one which would definitely represent a move away from the “common man” appeal of his earlier films. And at least those films had the gift of brevity.

My girlfriend would like you all to know that apparently I wear shirts like this...

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Yay! My Word (and Poster) is My Bond…

I’m just doing a bit of housekeeping at the moment, as I’m away on holidays from today. Don’t worry, there will still be daily reviews and stuff, so don’t worry about your movie nerd fix.

Anyway, just a quick note to say thank you to the guys over at Anomalous Material. I won a competition a few months back and got the snazzy James Bond poster pictured below. Good old Quantum of Solace. Anyway, the poster arrived yesterday and I thought I’d say thanks. If you aren’t reading them, you probably should be.

If you want a look at the poster, click on the image below.

And, in case you’re wondering what a “quantum of solace” is – apart from the logical “smallest quantity of solace which can exist independently” which isn’t really much of a meaning so much as dictionary definition – here’s a snippet of a Bond story in which Ian Fleming explains it:

The governor paused and looked reflectively over at Bond. He said: “You’re not married, but I think it’s the same with all relationships between a man and a woman. They can survive anything so long as some kind of basic humanity exists between two people. When all kindness has gone, when one person obviously and sincerely doesn’t care if the other is alive or dead, then it’s just no good. That particular insult to the ego – worse, to the instinct of self-preservation – can never be forgiven. I’ve noticed this in hundreds of marriages. I’ve seen flagrant infidelities patched up, I’ve seen crimes and even murder forgiven by the other party, let alone bankruptcy and every other form of social crime. Incurable disease, blindness, disaster – all these can be overcome. But never the death of common humanity in one of the partners. I’ve thought about this and I’ve invented a rather high-sounding title for this basic factor in human relations. I have called it the Law of the Quantum of Solace.”

And, while I’m riffing on the movie, check out the following spoof theme for Quantum of Solace. It’s much better than what we actually got:

I love the lyrics, particularly:

Sometimes I wish Roger Moore would come back
With an underwater car or some kind of jetpack
Or a hover-gondola
And a Union Jack

Forget it mate, it’s not the Eighties
He’d rather kick you in the face
We got a new Bond for the Noughties
Because the world’s a terrible place

So true.

Clip from Devil

The guys from Universal Studios Ireland sent over the following clip from Devil. It’s part of a proposed series of films from M. Night Shyamalan that’s he’s deeming “Night Chronicles”. In fairness, the director’s stock has taken a huge fall from its peak with The Sixth Sense (although I’ll argue Unbreakable is his true masterpiece), but it looks like he’s taking something of a backseat on this production – it’s actually directed by Drew & John Erick Dowdle, the guys responsible for the quite good (but not a patch on the Spanish original) Quarantine. Being honest, it could go either way, but the premise – several strangers trapped in a lift and one of them may be Satan – is intriguing enough that it could be the horror hit of the year or it could be terrible.

I guess we’ll see… Check out the clip below.

The m0vie blog is on vacation…

… or, as we Irish say, on holliers…

Right, I’m off to Cork for the week. I realise the schedule has been a bit all over the place of late, and I apologise. Hopefully when I’m back the week after next, I’ll get things back on track. In the meantime, there will be fresh reviews daily. See you all the week after next!

Non-Review Review: From Paris, With Love

Mister Morel, I watched Taken, I knew Taken, Taken was a film of mine. Mister Morel, this is no Taken. 

No can do, apparently...

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The Fish Bites Back: James Cameron & Piranha 3D

I kinda sorta almost want to see Piranha 3D. Not because I think it will be good, you see, but because I genuinely want some cheap, visceral 3D action. After all, what’s the point of 3D if it’s simply adding several layours to your 2D watching experience. I realise this makes me sound like an uncultured slob (which, let’s face it, if the glove fits…) but I really want to see a tacky exploitative bit of 3D cinema where things fly out of the screen at me a make me jump out of my seat. It’s not a feeling I’m particularly proud of, but it’s there. Anyway, James Cameron seems to hate me, and people like me. When asked about Piranha 3D, he offered this snippet:

I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but that is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3-D horror films from the 70s and 80s, like Friday the 13th 3-D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3-D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip. And that’s not what’s happening now with 3-D. It is a renaissance—right now the biggest and the best films are being made in 3-D. Martin Scorsese is making a film in 3-D. Disney’s biggest film of the year — Tron: Legacy — is coming out in 3-D. So it’s a whole new ballgame.

Okay, I can’t quite argue with that, but it still seems a little bit harsh.

From the looks of it, what James Cameron wants to do to Piranha 3D...

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Non-Review Review: Executive Decision

Are you manly? I mean really manly? In a way, Executive Decision is kinda what I was hoping for when I heard about The Expendables. It’s not an excellent movie, or even an exceptional one – in fact, it can be cynically described as “Die Hard on a plane” – but it’s a perfectly serviceable action movie that gets bonus points for never trying to be anything more than what it is. There’s not tangential romantic plot or half-hearted attempts at characterisation: the movie is all business. And that business is attempting to give its audience testosterone poisoning. 

Not quite plane sailing ahead...

 

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