blockbusters | the m0vie blog

Tinkers, Tailors: The Phantom of the Prestigious Sequel…

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Darren

If rumours are to be believed, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is such a dramatic success that discussions have begun about a possible sequel, with Gary Oldman even chiming in that a follow-up might do well to adapt both The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People into a single film – reducing leCarré’s trilogy to a duology. Still, even if there’s only one more film produced, the news can’t help but seem a little strange: after all, it’s very intellectual material for a Hollywood franchise, isn’t it?

Every right to be Smiley...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blockbusters, box office, Christopher Nolan, franchises, gary oldman, George Smiley, hollywood, Honourable Schoolboy, sequels, Smiley's People, The Honourable Schoolboy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tomas Alfredson | 4 Comments »

The Cautiously Conservative Cost of Film-Making In the Recession…

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Darren

When it first became clear that we were in for a long recession, there was a lot of fear about what that would mean for cinema. With less money to go around, and the ever-present fear of financial disappoint, a lot of people speculated that it would lead to a serious downturn in the production and distribution of “indie” movies by the major studios, a concern validated by the closing of various speciality divisions within major studios. While it has undoubtedly gotten significantly harder to produce and sell independent film, one look at last year’s Best Picture nominees suggest that these little gems are doing relatively okay – with films as provocative as Black Swan, as alternative as The Kids Are All Right and as gritty as Winter’s Bone all making the cut. Still, if the indie apocalypse that was foretold hasn’t come to pass, I do have to wonder what the cinematic cost of the current economic climate might be.

Hollywood's taken the occasional slap on the wrist over the past few years...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blockbusters, ComCast, film, Gore Verbinski, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Jerry Bruckheimer, johnny depp, Kids Are All Right, Lone Ranger, movie costs, recession | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Transformers 3 – Dark of the Moon

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Darren

Here’s the thing: I don’t really expect a lot from Transformers: Dark of the Moon. It’s a movie about two rival factions of robots who engage in civil war on Earth. It’s not the stuff of epic tragedy or cinematic masterpieces. It’s designed to offer knock-down brawls, superb CGI, stunning action and a handful of fist-pumping moments. I’m cool with that. I don’t expect any more than that, and – to a certain extent – the movie meets my basic needs. However, despite a superb supporting cast and some superb special effects, the movie feels a little too self-important and po-faced to ever really engage. The final forty minutes are something to behold, but there’s just too much mundane plotting and pompous pseudo-philosophical rambling in the first two hours to really justify it.

Jump in my car...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: action, Autobot, blockbusters, Buzz Aldrin, cartoon, cgi, films, michael bay, Movies, non-review review, Optimus Prime, review, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, shia labeouf, shia labouef, the dark of the moon, transformers, transformers 3, transformers 3: dark of the moon, transformers 3: the dark of the moon, transformers: dark of the moon, transformers: the dark of the moon, United States | 6 Comments »

In Defense of Blockbusters: Are We Unduly Harsh on Big Budget Hollywood Movies?

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Darren

I was just remarking how much I love cinema – how much I am predisposed to like a film – and I got thinking, why are we so harsh on big budget Hollywood films? Don’t get me wrong, the studio system produces its fair share of crap, but it seems to be the target of choice for any person looking to decry the death of modern culture. We’re assured, virtually everywhere, that the blockbuster is meant to be a cheap, disposable form of entertainment – and that it’s simply a “guilty pleasure”, if at all. I’ve noticed this trend quite a bit of late, as this is the time of the year that movie geeks look ahead to the summer season and realise… seemingly to their horror (though it can’t possibly be to their surprise)… that the summer is filled with big-budget mainstream blockbusters from wall-to-wall. Ignoring the fact that Hollywood’s annual cycle is highly predictable these days (save only the emerge of what I like to call “quirky March” in recent years), why is the arrival of the summer fare universally treated as a bad thing?

Swimming with sharks...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Academy Award for Best Picture, arts, blockbuster, Blockbuster Inc., blockbuster movies, blockbusters, film, hollywood, jameson dublin international film festival, King's Speech, Movie | 2 Comments »

Aaronofsky to Wrestle “The Wolverine”: Are Independent Directors the Best Choices for Superhero Cinema?

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Darren

I’m going to be honest, I like it when relatively obscure film directors are handed the reigns to huge blockbuster properties. It seems that these “cult” film makers tend to bring something fresh from outside the studio system to their work. I might sound more than a bit pretentious, but it reminds me of the way that many of the blockbuster directors of the seventies – including Lucas and Spielberg – originated from outside the studio system before revolutionising it from inside. As a concept, would I rather watch Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen or Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins? No choice there. Any film with the name “Jerry Bruckheimer” attached or Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man? Again, no choice. So, despite the fact that Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a critical failure and an infuriatingly (but, sadly, not unpredictably) disappointing film, am I alone in getting a little excited about Darren Aaronofsky’s The Wolverine.

Against all odds, I might be feeling pretty Jack(man)ed about this...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman forever, blockbusters, bryan singer, comic book movies, Darren Aronofsky, films, gavin hood, hugh jackman, indie, sam raimi, wolverine, wolverine 2, wolverine ii, x-men, X-Men Origins: Wolverine | 5 Comments »

Paradise Lost & Found: Milking Milton

Posted on September 22, 2010 by Darren

Sometimes you hear a movie pitch and you think “man, that’s a good idea”. This is not one of those ideas. Apparently Hollywood has run out of modern fantasy books and comics to adapt and have set their eyes to a somewhat higher brow work: Milton’s Paradise Lost. I loved that book in secondary school almost as much as I loved Dante’s Inferno (the rest of The Divine Comedy I could take or leave, to be brutally honest). Anyway, you’d think I would be rejoicing at the news of the adaptation, but my cynical nature betrays itself here. You see, here is exactly what the producers had to say about the proposal:

…the project tells the story of the epic war in heaven between archangels Michael and Lucifer, and will be crafted as an action vehicle that will include aerial warfare, possibly shot in 3D.

Yes, it’s a 3D “aerial warfare” movie. I’m waiting for the announcement that Sam Worthington will play Satan and Vin Diesel will play the “one day away from retirement” Archangel “my friends call me Gabe” Gabriel.

That pitch meeting obviously didn't go well...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 3d, adaptations, aerial warfare, alexis proyas, big budget, blockbusters, cinema, classics, dante, Divine Comedy, faith, films, god, hollywood, milton, Movies, paradise, paradise lost, religion, the divine comedy, the illiad | Leave a comment »

Super-Snobbery…

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Darren

I was very interested to read a piece comparing Christopher Nolan to Stanley Kubrick in The Guardian over the weekend. Ignoring the fact that I don’t think it’s fair to attempt to seriously describe anyone as the “new” anything (it’s really only handy as a shortcut, to form a quick association, rather than forming the basis of a whole argument) and, if I had to, I’d say Nolan was “the new Hitchcock”, one piece stood out at me, when comparing Kubrick’s work to Nolan’s under “thematic daring”:

In the end, what are Nolan’s films actually about? Two of them are superhero flicks, two are cop movies and one is about a magician. Nolan isn’t exactly going to the wall for the big ideas. (Interestingly, by far the most radical film he’s made was that very first one, Following – a very creepy existential story about a stalker.) Kubrick made films about paedophilia, military justice, atomic obliteration, urban violence and the Vietnam war … Nolan is – at present, anyhow – a confirmed establishment figure; nothing he’s done has caused the smallest ripple of disquiet. This may change, but with another Batman film in the works I can’t see it happening just yet.

What immediately struck me about that paragraph was how ridiculously condescending it was to the genres that Nolan worked with – as if to say he’s “only” made two movies about a guy who dresses in formfitting rubber, two cop thrillers and one film about some blokes who do magic. How ridiculously patronising can you get?

If Batman hears one more person say "The Dark Knight isn't bad for a comic book movie..."

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: better films, blockbusters, Christopher Nolan, elitism, films, genre, good films, Movies, Oscars, prejudice, snobbery, snobs, The Dark Knight, the guardian | 4 Comments »

Why Inception Matters…

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Darren

I spent a great deal of last weekend heavily anticipating the box office figures for Inception. Of money it makes won’t change the fact that I think it’s an amazing film, but it will affect the impact that Christopher Nolan’s latest will have on the movie industry. And that, my friends, is very important. In fact, I’d go out on a limb and suggest that Inception might be the most important summer blockbuster of the decade, and possibly longer.

More movies like Inception? Hopefully not just in my dreams...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: audiences, big budget, blockbusters, box office, challenges, Christopher Nolan, dumbing down, films, hollywood, ideas, Inception, Movies, smart, studios, Warner Brothers, why inception matters | 6 Comments »

Counting Your Chickens… Green Lighting Sequels Before the Original is Released

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Darren

I would have thought that the mess that was caused by The Matrix Revolutions and The Matrix Reloaded would have killed the notion of greenlighting several films at once – those two movies, following up to the science-fiction phenomenon which was The Matrix, represented a jumble of ideas from the film makers, without the counterbalance or mass appeal which defined the original. The Wachowski Brothers, allowed free reign, proceeded to produce two extremely dense discourses on abstract philosophy lacking in any real heart and populated with awkwardly assembled set pieces and grand-sounding ideas. I would have assumed that the poor reception and somewhat negative impact the two films have had on their iconic predecessor would have dissuaded studios from allowing such free reign again. However, it seems that the trend might be coming back into vogue – with rumours of a green-lit Green Lantern 2 before the original is released and not one but two Mad Max reimaginings on the way.

Join me, Luke, I have a six picture deal...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blockbusters, economics, films, green lantern, green lantern 2, green light, green-lit, mad max, mad max: furiosa, mad max: fury road, Movies, sequels | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Terminator 2 – Judgement Day

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Darren

Terminator 2 is a pop culture classic, a film that single-handedly made Arnold loveable despite films like Junior and Jingle All the Way, typecast Robert Patrick as a distinctly unpleasant individual and reminded us that not all teenage protagonists had to be eye-roll inducingly bad. Spielberg’s Jaws is frequently regarded as “the first blockbuster”, but I think the case can be made that Terminator 2 redefined the kind of summer movie we saw – for better or worse, it laid down a blueprint which has been followed countless times since.