the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Hide Your Smiling Faces

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2014.

Kids these days, am I right? Hide Your Smiling Faces feels like an eighty-eight minute extended catalogue of various fears and insecurities about the children growing up in today’s world. Following the tragic death of a young boy, Hide Your Smiling Faces focuses its attention on the young kid’s closest friend and that friend’s older brother – exploring their different emotional reactions to the loss. Writer and director Daniel Patrick Carbone adopts a naturalistic approach to dialogue, trying to lend Hide Your Smiling Faces an authenticity or realism.

Unfortunately, the film is simply too dull for its own good, mistaking inertia for pensiveness and inactivity for pensiveness. It seems like Hide Your Smiling Faces spends most of its runtime trying to convince the audience – and itself – that less is more. Sadly, sometimes less is less.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, hide your smiling faces, jameson dublin international film festival, jdiff, Movie, non-review review, review | Leave a comment »

Cullen Bunn’s Run on Captain America & … (Review)

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Darren

This March, to celebrate the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we’ll be taking a look at some classic and not-so-classic Avengers comic books. Check back daily for the latest updates!

Following Ed Brubaker on a Captain America book was always going to be tough, even if Brubaker had simply been providing the story for his last couple of Captain America & Bucky issues. Indeed, Cullen Bunn took over for Brubaker on one of three on-going Captain America books; with Brubaker still writing Captain America and Winter Soldier. As such, Bunn is somewhat trapped. He can’t really continue Brubaker’s still-unfolding story, but he can’t strike out with his own bold direction like Rick Remender would on a relaunched Captain America.

So it’s no surprise that Bunn’s thirteen issue Captain America & … run feels fairly indistinct. It’s a competently-produced piece of comic book writing, but it doesn’t stand out in the way that it needs to, feeling neither weighty nor fun enough to make the book stand out from the crowd.

He always said Cap was a dinosaur…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: black widow, Bucky, captain america, captain america and, Comics, cullen bunn, ed brubaker, hawkeye, iron man, marvel, namor | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Mystery Road

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2014.

Mystery Road is mostly atmosphere. Its plot is fairly standard neo-noir drugs thriller fare; its characters are pretty stock. However, Ivan Sen’s Australian thriller has a palpable sense of dread and anxiety that seems to press down on the film. There’s a slow boil pressure cooker at the heart of the film, which rather brilliantly taps into standard film noir storytelling conventions and translates them effortlessly to the Outback.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Australia, Film noir, ivan sen, jameson dublin international film festival, jdiff, Movie, mystery road | Leave a comment »

Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – The Age of Ultron (Review)

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Darren

Age of Ultron is Brian Michael Bendis’ last hurrah on Marvel’s massive Avengers franchise. Bendis began writing Avengers when it was a third-tier comic book property, and he was – in a large part – responsible for turning the comic franchise into a sales juggernaut. The fact that Marvel was simultaneously working on a massive cinematic universe built around these characters – if only because they’d sold off most of the other ones – probably didn’t hurt.

So, with Bendis moving off the Avengers franchise, ceding the crown of lead Avengers writer to up-and-comer Jonathan Hickman, he wrote Age of Ultron. It was a story the author had been hinting at for quite some time, from the first arc of his relaunched adjectiveless Avengers title through to his short run on Moon Knight. Having completed a grand sweeping story arc running from Avengers Disassembled through to Siege, Age of Ultron feels like an epilogue to Bendis’ run – a post-script to the tenure of the man who changed the franchise.

It also feels, rather awkwardly, like the most self-consciously Avengers-y Avengers story ever aveng(er)ed.

Over-exposure is killing Wolverine…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: age of ultron, avengers, avengers: the age of ultron, brian bendis, brian michael bendis, chris pacheco, Comics, continuity, marvel, review, ultron | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Need for Speed

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Darren

The obvious comparison for Need for Speed is to suggest that the movie feels like a video game. After all, the film is an adaptation of EA’s successful car racing video game franchise, porting the adventure to the big screen. However, that doesn’t quite cover Scott Waugh’s Need for Speed. Instead, his car racing adventure feels almost like a cartoon for most of its runtime, adopting a much lighter tone and more careful visual style than the Fast & Furious series which also invites comparisons.

This cartoonish quality is endearing at points, with certain racing sequences and chases feeling almost like a live-action version of Wacky Races, but it means that the movie struggles to shift gears. Attempts to get the audience to invest in a standard central plotline about redemption and justice are hard to balance against the decidedly over-the-top atmosphere of the rest of the film. There are points where Need for Speed needs to convince us to care about its characters, but it can’t make them seem real – no matter how hard it tries.

Stop right now, thank you very much…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: aaron paul, cars, cartoon, cops, dominic cooper, film, Imogen Poots, Movie, need for speed, non-review review, racing, review, scott waugh, stylised | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Brothers (Review)

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Darren

This January and February, we’ll be finishing up our look at the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and moving on to the third year of the show, both recently and lovingly remastered for high definition. Check back daily for the latest review.

Brothers is Star Trek: The Next Generation getting back to business at usual. Well, not quite usual, but close enough. Following the monumental season-bridging epic that was The Best of Both Worlds and the breathing space afforded by Family, Brothers is a good old-fashioned science-fiction adventure story revolving around one of the show’s most popular character and really written to satisfy a laundry list of Star Trek tropes and conventions.

Although its notable for maintaining a thematic consistency that is threaded through the fourth season, and also for affording Brent Spiner to play three different roles, the most striking aspect of Brothers from a production point of view is the fact that it is written by Rick Berman. Berman had been serving as producer on the show since Encounter at Farpoint, but this was his first scripting contribution. He’d only write one more episode of The Next Generation before the show went off the air.

Given Berman’s production style, it feels strangely appropriate that Brothers is so carefully and meticulously structured and constructed.

“Let’s put a smile on that face…”

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: androids, brothers, Data, Datalore, evil, gene roddenberry, Lore, Michael Piller, noonian soong, Rick Berman, Rob Bowman, robots, soong, star trek, star trek: the next generation | 13 Comments »

Star Trek: Borg (Review)

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

The Borg were the breakout aliens of the era surrounding Star Trek: The Next Generation. They appeared in all the spin-offs following The Next Generation – providing a piece of back story for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and a nice mid-run bump for Star Trek: Voyager. They are probably the only Star Trek alien created in the wake of the original television show that can be identified readily by casual television viewers and movie-goers; ranking with the Klingons or the Romulans.

As such, it’s a surprise that the franchise waited so long to capitalise on them so ruthlessly. Q Who? introduced the Borg, and they appeared in the following season’s cliffhanger finalé. The Best of Both Worlds became something of a minor television phenomenon, and the Borg reappeared a couple of times in the years following. That said, it wasn’t until 1996 and 1997 that the franchise really pushed the Borg to the fore.

With the release of Star Trek: First Contact into theatres, the Borg were everywhere. They got spin-off comic books, a build-up to a cliffhanger appearance in Voyager, and even Star Trek: Borg.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: borg, hilary j. bader, james conway, james l. conway, john de lancie, john delancie, star trek, star trek: borg, Video game | Leave a comment »

Watch! Sin City: A Dame to Kill For Trailer!

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Darren

Well, it looks like the Sin City sequel that was oft-discussed but perpetually-delayed is actually happening. There’s footage to prove it and everything. Directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller have released a trailer for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and it looks absolutely fascinating. The first movie looked absolutely stunning, and it’ll be interesting to see if the sequel can measure up.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: a dame to kill for, frank miller, robert rodriguez, sin city, sin city: a dame to kill for | 3 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Family (Review)

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Darren

He’s still out there. Dreaming about starships and adventures. It’s getting late.

Yes. But let him dream.

– Robert and Marie try to figure out what all this “Star Trek” milarky is about

Starry, starry night…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: borg, family, france, klingons, Michael Piller, patrick stewart, ron d. moore, ron moore, ronald d. moore, ronald moore, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Television, the next generation, tv | 13 Comments »

Watch! The Worf of Wall Street Trailer!

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Darren

The Wolf of Wall Street is one of the best movies of the year so far, and we’re coming to the end of this leg of our nostalgic sprint through Star Trek: The Next Generation, so there’s really no better time to share this wonderful spoof mock-up of everybody’s favourite Klingon. It’s a superbly edited and timed piece of work. Check it out below.