Posted on May 22, 2009 by Darren
I’m going to be honest – I’m not a fan of Without a Trace. I’ll confess to something resembling indifferent affection to Anthony LaPlagia, but I’ve never sat down and watched an episode. I do know lots of people who watch it regularly. Hell, based on the viewing figures, there are a lot of people who watch it regularly. So, as someone who never watched the show, I am still gravely worried by what I see: the recession is affecting networks so badly that they are being forced to cancel expensive high-budget dramas.
I wonder if the network cancelled it simply because of the amount of puns that journalists could make about a show called Without a Trace going missing...
Continue reading →
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: budget, cold case, drama, medium, networks, reality television, reality tv, recession, Television, the wire, without a trace | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 22, 2009 by Darren
Well, it’s almost over. The Cannes film festival – generally praised as the height of sophisticated cinema – will wrap up on Sunday evening. I may have been a bit negative in my coverage of Cannes this year – with jabs at Lars von Trier and Quentin Tarantino who were screening at the festival – but I’m absolutely delighted with how the festival seems to have gone, and with the weather the way it is over here, I figured it was time to run some good news.
Things I like about Cannes #1: I like that it's always sunny in Cannes...
Continue reading →
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: antichrist, cannes, cannes film festival, inglourious basterds, lars von trier, pixar, quentin tarantino, up | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 21, 2009 by Darren
Okay, I get it. We’re sick. We need help. We’re a culture obsessed with violence and pain and suffering. I miss the days when the gory slasher (or torture porn or gorn, depending on your preference) was solely the affairs of one-week-wonders produced on shoestrings and making a bit of money for studios to pump into other projects. However, with the autuer circuit’s growing fascination with paracinema (making the low brow high brow), it seems that these disturbing little films have become an arthouse favourite. Lars Von Trier’s effort at Cannes with Antichrist seems to have shown that critics are growing tired of it, but what on earth convinced artsy directors that this was a good genre to tackle?
This is another sort of gorn. It is also the only worksafe image we have on the topic.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: antichrist, cannes, funny games, gorn, grindhouse, independent cinema, Kinatay, lars von trier, Movies, saw, torture porn | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 21, 2009 by Darren
So, Cannes is well and truly underway. And without (for the most part) the bitchiness or grumbling that usually accompanies it. What? Journalists might actually enjoy a film festival? Pish-posh. Still, despite the huge backlash against Lars Von Trier, the festival is going down a treat. When a Disney film can open Cannes to universal acclaim (no easy feat), you know something’s off. With the general lack of pithiness that defines Cannes journalism, I don’t know what to make of coverage of Inglourious Basterds. The reviews are mixed at best. I miss the Tarantino who won the Palme d’Or for Pulp Fiction. What happened?
Quentin Tarantino, master of the pop culture cocktail
Continue reading →
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cannes, csi, grindhouse, inglourious basterds, kill bill, pulp fiction, quentin tarantino, Reservoir Dogs, tarantino, true romance | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 20, 2009 by Darren
The early reviews for Terminator: Salvation seem to be in – and they are not as bad as I thought they would be. Apparently if you leave your brain at reception, you might enjoy it. Still, it’s got me thinking. The original Terminator was one of the few Hollywood movies to deal with time travel relatively well. How come Hollywood seems to have such difficulty wrestling with such a common science fiction trope?
Warning: thinking about time travel might make your brain melt
Continue reading →
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: back to the future, doctor who, donnie darko, fate, final destination, lost, Movies, paradox, primer, quantum leap, red alert, red dwarf, science, science fiction, star trek, terminator, terminator 2, terminator 3, terminator: salvation, time travel, twilight zone | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 20, 2009 by Darren
I have a moral dilemma. Pixar’s Up is released in the United States next weekend. It has opened to nigh-universal praise at Cannes. My girlfriend is anticipating the film like nobody’s business. And we’ll have to wait five months to get to see it over here. By that stage, the DVD and Blu Ray will have been released in the United States.
So, should I feel guilty about wanting to import a legally purchased DVD or Blu Ray of a film that hasn’t arrived in cinemas yet?
You shouldn't have to trek halfway around the world to see Up...
Continue reading →
Filed under: Opinion | Tagged: blu ray, DVD, import, Ireland, Movies, pixar, region, Television, tv, us | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 19, 2009 by Darren
We caught Wanted on Sky Anytime this evening, and figured it was worth a look. My aunt loved it, my uncles seemed less-than-enthuised, and me? I’m not quite sure what to make of it. If I had to sum it up, I’d say that there are worse ways to spend an evening, but there are a whole host of better ones too. On the summer blockbusterfare, this is pretty distant from The Matrix or The Dark Knight or even Iron Man. It doesn’t have the kitsch value of Independence Day either (“… and today… is our… independence day!”). But it is significantly better than Transformers or Bad Boys II.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Movies, Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: angelina jolie, atonement, blockbuster, girl, interrupted, james mcavoy, mark millar, Morgan Freeman, non-review review, review, wanted | 4 Comments »
Posted on May 19, 2009 by Darren
I like Christian Bale. Or at least, I want to like Christian Bale. Having watched him since American Psycho (joining relatively late in his career-to-date but earlier than most), I am continual impressed by the quality of his acting. Yet I find it very hard to refute when my brother begins justifying his hatred for the erstwhile Welsh thespian. Eventually – after much soul-searching – I figured out why. Christian Bale suffers from what might be termed ‘Sean Penn syndrome’. In short, he’s an incredibly talented douchebag.
Is this the face of a highly talented douchebag?
Continue reading →
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 3:10 to yuma, apocolypse now, batman, batman begins, celebrity tantrums, charlie chaplin, christian bale, douchebag, equilibrium, johnny depp, marlon brando, mcg, orson welles, public enemies, russell crowe, sean penn, sean penn syndrome, tantrums, terminator, terminator: salvation, The Dark Knight, transformers | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 18, 2009 by Darren
“This is Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you.”
-Bill Rawls
I finished the fourth season of The Wire yesterday. Boy was that depressing. Really depressing. Even my parents, who had been wading in and out as they were going about their weekend business, found it almost soul-destroyingly downbeat. That’s not to say it wasn’t great – just depressing. Anyway, my mom repeatedly stressed that she didn’t believe that anywhere as bad as Baltimore could actually exist. I decided to investigate.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Opinion | Tagged: baltimore, drug trade, DVD, Television, the wire | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 18, 2009 by Darren
What do Hollywood film makers owe to history? I’ve had this question on my mind because I’ve been seeing quite a few historical films lately – The Reader, Chaplin, and Frost/Nixon will hopefully be arriving in my mailbox today – and I just wondered how faithful it was reasonable to expect a Hollywood film to be to real life events.
Contrary to popular belief, the missing 18 minutes from the Watergate tapes do not feature Richard Nixon practicing jazz hands...
Continue reading →
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: devalera, eamon devalera, fargo, frost/nixon, george w. bush, history, hollywood, hollywood history, inglorious basterds, michael collins, oliver stone, quentin tarentino, richard nixon, w. | 1 Comment »
the m0vie blog 