21 Jump Street | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: 22 Jump Street

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Darren

Comedy sequels can be a tough beast.

After all, a joke isn’t as funny the second time around and – if it is – there’s always the DVD. Comedy sequels often find themselves trapped between a rock and a hard place. They have to pay homage and due respect to what came before, but they can’t simply tread out the same old jokes. It isn’t a case of simply doing the same thing but bigger, as with most sequels. Comedy sequels are a tough nut to crack.

The genius of 22 Jump Street is the way that it accepts this and turns it into the biggest joke of the film.

Jumping back into their roles…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 21 Jump Street, 22 jump street, Channing Tatum, comedy sequels, film, jonah hill, Movie, non-review review, review, sequels | 6 Comments »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 21 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Darren

The end is nigh. Even if I didn’t know that these wonderful hardcover collections from DC comics were finishing up soon (with the last of the weekly strips collected in The Spirit Archives, Vol. 24), I could probably get a sense that things were winding down from a quick read of The Spirit Archives, Vol. 21. Up until this point, The Spirit has had five years of quality following Will Eisner’s return from service in the Second World War. It’s very hard to think of any comic (then or now) that has enjoyed any four consecutive years of quality that measures up to the work by Eisner on The Spirit at the very height of its game.

And it is, I must confess, very easy to get caught off-guard by the slow (but steady) decline in quality in The Spirit. After all, off-peak Spirit by Will Eisner is still better than most of its contemporary comics. And, to be fair, the vast majority of modern comics. There is some great stuff here – some truly fantastic, great stuff. Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of evidence that Eisner’s creative energies were ebbing just a bit. The end was fast approaching, and this collection features the first truly noticeable stumbles.

Somebody’s a fan of the Great Train Robbery…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: 21 Jump Street, A Contract with God, Charlie Brown, Ebony, Eisner, Ellen Dolan, First Man, Jules Feiffer, Lou Fine, Spirit, Spirit Archives, The Spirit Archives: Volume 12, United States, vietnam, Will Eisner, world war ii | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Magic Mike

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Darren

Magic Mike has a lightness of touch that’s been missing from a lot of Steven Soderbergh’s recent work. It’s nowhere near as ambitious as Contagion was, but that isn’t necessary a bad thing from the perspective of the film about male stripper living a rock and roll lifestyle. While Magic Mike won’t get any marks for originality, it does manage to feature two impressive performances and has a refreshing sense of “fun”about it. It a solidly entertaining and diverting piece of entertainment, executed with considerable skill that helps distract from its relatively conventional nature.

It’s getting hot in here…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 21 Jump Street, Alex Pettyfer, Channing Tatum, Cody Horn, Contagion, Dallas, film, Magic Mike, Male stripper, Matthew McConaughey, Mike, Movie, non-review review, review, Steven Soderbergh | 2 Comments »

More Than You Embargoed For: Thoughts on Review Embargoes…

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Darren

I know I’m a bit late on this one, but I’ve been thinking a bit about movie review embargoes of late. For those unaware, embargoes are those restrictions on when a reviewer can publish a review. They’re normally enforced by studios, limiting the publication of reviews to within a one week window of the movie’s release. I’ve had the fortune over the past few months to be invited to screenings of The Avengers and Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists long before the window, and have held my review until it’s okay to publish. Still, I can’t help but feel a little uneasy at the prospect.

Nothing to get too Fury-ous about…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 21 Jump Street, Albert Nobbs, art, avengers, David Denby, embargo, film, film criticism, Film festival, hollywood, jameson dublin international film festival, Level playing field, Movie, New York Times, review, review embargo, screenwriter, United States | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: 21 Jump Street

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Darren

The review was embargoed until the 5th March 2012.

The obvious point of comparison to Jonah Hill’s big-screen adaptation of 21 Jump Street is the Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson version of Starsky & Hutch. After all, both take classic cult television shows and recycle them for modern audiences, taking dramatic plot devices that seem hilarious and goofy in hindsight and playing them as straight comedy. There is, however, one very crucial difference between that adaptation of a seventies cop show and this adaptation of an eighties cop show: 21 Jump Street works. Mostly.