the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: The Informant!

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Darren

The Informant! has some tricky subject matter to cover. Its subject, Mark Whitacre, remains a controversial figure in the history of corporate law enforcement up to (and probably well beyond) the present day. It’s a complex history, one which involves the most high-profile FBI investigation into price-fixing at major American companies, but which involves a very complicated central figure. I’m hesitant to go into too much detail as – although I’m not sure you can “spoil” a true story – I don’t want to ruin the experience of watching the film for anyone, but it’s a very fascinating example of corporate whistleblowing.

You'll be on the edge of your seat...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: films, jim carrey, Mark Whitacre, matt damon, michael crichton, Movies, non-review review, review, Scott Bakula, stephen russell, steve russell, Steven Soderbergh, the informant | 2 Comments »

What if the Best Picture Posters Told the Truth?

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Darren

Truth be told, I’m a little behind this week. I took a trip down to Sligo at the weekend and I’m preparing for a film noir blogothon next week (stay tuned). So posting this week may be a little… scattershot. Anyway, in a nice way to tie into those wonderful BAFTA poster redesigns from last year, this year we have – courtesy of theshiznit.co.uk – a simple question: what if this year’s Best Picture nominees told the truth, up front? Instead of vague names like Winter’s Bone or Inception or The Fighter… well, that last one’s pretty spot on… but what if the movies just told you everything you needed to know, on the poster? They might look like this…

(click to enlarge)

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Academy Award for Best Picture, arts, comedy, Film noir, films, funny, homouir, Movies, Oscars, parody, poster, sligo, Winter's Bone | 8 Comments »

Mark Millar & Brian Michael Bendis’ Run on Ultimate Fantastic Four – Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Darren

The Fantastic Four, as originally imagined by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, were an instant overnight success for Marvel. Although perhaps Spider-Man would go on to surpass them as the most recognisable creation from the comic book publisher, the four were intrinsically linked with the spirit of newness and pop science that defined comic books in the sixties – the run was so iconic that I’m even considering placing an order for the two volumes of Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four Omnibus, even though I find Silver Age comic books tough to read. So, it comes as a bit of a surprise that the characters were among the last to be coopted into Marvel’s Ultimate line, an experiment designed to essentially start their characters from scratch again to attract a new audience. However, depite the late arrival of Ultimate Fantastic Four – four years after Ultimate Spider-Man and three years after Ultimate X-Men – the talent involed in the launch of the series suggests that Marvel was trying to get this version of the family off to the same flying start as their mainstream counterpart.

That's gonna put a dent in local real estate prices...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: adam kubert, art, ben grimm, brian michael bendis, Comics, johnny storm, kick-ass, mark millar, marvel comics, reed richards, stan lee, sue storm, the fantastic, ultimate comics, Ultimate Fantastic Four, ultimate marvel, ultimate spider man, ultimate universe, warren ellis | 2 Comments »

Memories of a Multiplex: The Gaiety Cinema, Sligo

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Darren

I took a trip down to Sligo with the better half at the weekend there. I grew up in the city, but I haven’t found myself visiting too often. There’s something strange about returning to the town where you grew up. Everything seems smaller, even if there are far more shopping centres and recognisable brands around the place. It was good to go back and to see it all again. And my better half was so kind that she suggested that we go to the local cinema and catch a screening. And so we attended a showing of The Fighter at the Gaiety Cinema Sligo.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Blade II, cinema paradiso, Cultures and Groups, Enniskillen, film, Film director, Four Star Pizza, Ireland, james bond, Matrix Reloaded, Movie theater, Movies, sligo, sligo town, star wars, the gaiety, the gaiety cinema, the gaiety cinema sligo, tomorrow never dies | Leave a comment »

Captain America 101: An Introduction to the Star-Spangled Avenger…

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Darren

I did a post a little while back that was intended to serve as an introduction to the world of the Green Lantern, what with the movie coming out this year. The post proved so popular that I thought I’d take perhaps put a similar post together on Captain America. The first trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger premiered at the Super Bowl yesterday, so it seems to be the perfect time for a bit of an introduction to the star-spangled superhero. Check out the 30-second spot below.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: captain america, captain america 101, captain america: the first avenger, chris evans, ed brubaker, films, green lantern, Gulf War, hugo weaving, marvel, Marvel Comic, marvel comics, Movies, the first avenger, Timely Comics, Watergate Scandal, world war ii | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Fighter

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Darren

The Fighter comes from a long line of Oscar-friendly boxing films. From Rocky through to The Cinderella Man to Raging Bull and beyond, filmmakers seem to see something poetic in the boxer. A figure in the ring, usually from a disadvantaged background, fighting because it’s the only thing that they know what to do. There’s a noble simplicity to the sport, a brutal honest that one seldom finds in football (American or otherwise), basketball or baseball. There’s always something touching about watching a protagonist beat the odds, and boxing films thrive on the literal nature of their conflict. I can’t say that The Fighter adds anything new to the long established “Oscar boxing film”, but it does have one advantage: the sheer volume of talent in its corner.

How does it measure up?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Academy Award, christian bale, David O. Russell, Fighter, film, Homer Simpson, mark wahlberg, Melissa Leo, Micky Ward, Movie, non-review review, review, Rocky Balboa | Leave a comment »

Is Avatar a Revisionist Take on Aliens?

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Darren

I know this isn’t exactly a new idea, but it’s one I’ve been mulling over quite a bit lately – especially since my aunt picked up the Alien Anthology on blu ray for Christmas. It’s been fairly frequently remarked, on-line and in-print that James Cameron’s Avatar bears remarkable similarities to his Aliens. However, it’s not the similarities that interest me, it’s the differences which reveal quite a bit. Most fascinating – at least to me – is the idea that Avatar represents an attempt to revise Cameron’s work on Aliens.

Killer queen...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 20th Century Fox, alien, aliens, avatar, Entertainment Weekly, films, james cameron, metafiction, Movies, revisionism, Sam Worthington, sequel, shared universe, sigourney weaver, Unobtainium, Viet Cong, xenomorphs | 10 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Book of Eli

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Darren

The Book of Eli is an interesting film. It’s undoubtedly well made, featuring a strong cast and a pretty great script. Being honest, we’ve had more than enough death and destruction amid post-apocalyptic wastelands, so a movie that doesn’t dwell too much on the soulless nihilism of the setting – well, relatively speaking. It’s sort of an action movie response to the after-the-end thrillers we’ve been seeing a lot of in recent years (The Road comes to mind, as does Carriers and Hollywood’s current fascination with zombies). However, the movie comes across as a little too polished and stylised for its own good – at times it seems as if the cast are recording a perfume commercial set amid the ruins of a world that once was.

Have we been down this road before?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, Book of Eli, denzel washington, films, gary oldman, George Washington, Hughes Brothers, michael gambon, Movies, non-review review, post-apocalyptic, review, Washington | 5 Comments »

The Strange Case of Hugo Strange: Robin Williams in the Dark Knight Rises?

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Darren

You’d imagine that the announcement that Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway would play Bane and Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises might have put a bit of dampener of cast speculation for Nolan’s superhero blockbuster. You would have been wrong. The latest rumour coming out is that Robin Williams has been tapped to play Dr. Hugo Strange. I’d normally dismiss this the way that we dismiss all those Joseph Gordon Levitt or Johnny Depp as the Riddler rumours, but I figure it’s an interesting enough idea to merit discussion.

By the way, in case you need an introduction to Hugo Strange, here’s the trailer for the upcoming Batman video game Batman: Arkham City, in which Strange is voiced by Corey Burton “doing a Christopher Lee” and put in a very Nolan-esque setting. Give it a watch.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arkham city, bane, batman, batman: arkham city, bruce wayne, Carmine Falcone, Christopher Nolan, Gotham City Police Department, Hugo Strange, robin williams, rumours, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Blind Side

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Darren

Is this some sort of white guilt thing?

– anonymous female friend #1

The fundamental problem with The Blind Side is that it takes Michael Oher’s struggle to overcome everything stacked against him, and makes it abundantly clear that the real hero of the story is Leigh Anne Touhy, the rich and privileged white woman who took him in. In fact, the sports legend ends up playing a supporting character in his own damn biopic.