brad pitt | the m0vie blog

206. se7en – Halloween 2020 (#20)

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Doctor Bernice Murphy and Phil Bagnall, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This week and next week, we are taking a break from our Summer of Scorsese for a Halloween treat. David Fincher’s se7en.

Detective William Somerset is seven days away from retirement, and has just been partnered with a new arrival from outside the city. Detective David Mills has yet to fully adjust to the rules of the urban landscape. However, Somerset’s plans to retire are undercut after a pair of strange deaths point to something sinister simmering below the surface of the city.

At time of recording, it was ranked 20th on the Internet Movie Database‘s list of the best movies of all-time.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: bernice murphy, brad pitt, david fincher, doctor bernice murphy, Gwyneth Paltrow, halloween, horror, kevin spacey, Morgan Freeman, nightmare, phil bagnall, scary, se7en, The 250, urban gothic | Leave a comment »

178. Snatch – World Tour 2020, w/ When Irish Eyes Are Watching (#100)

Posted on April 18, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Alex Towers and Sean Driver from When Irish Eyes Are Watching, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Guy Ritchie’s Snatch.

Two low-level grifters looking to buy a caravan from some Irish travellers. One international thief lying low in London after an Antwerp job. A former Soviet secret agent. A reliable Jewish fence and his American counterpart. A tough old gangland geezer who isn’t used to not having things go his way. A diamond. A dog. And the chaos that ensues when all of these elements collide in the most unexpected of ways.

At time of recording, it was ranked 100th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: brad pitt, irish, irishness, Jason Statham, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Podcasts!, Snatch, The 250, travelers, when irish eyes are watching | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! “Ad Astra” and What We Carry with Us…

Posted on October 14, 2019 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at Escapist Magazine yesterday. This one has been kicking around for a little while, discussing James Gray’s Ad Astra.

In particular, it takes a look at a broader trend in modern space movies – what might be dubbed the “sad astronaut” genre. In contrast to the sixties utopian fantasies of shows like Star Trek or 2001: A Space Odyssey, these films tend to offer a more introspective portrait of space travel. Films like Gravity or Interstellar or First Man are as much about the baggage that the protagonists bring with them on their journey as they are about what the character in question might find out there.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: ad astra, aliens, astronaut, brad pitt, First Man, interstellar, Life, sixties, space, utopianism | Leave a comment »

151. Fight Club – Summer of ’99 (#10)

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Charlene Lydon and Alex Towers, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, continuing our Summer of ’99 season, David Fincher’s Fight Club.

1999 was a great year for movies, with a host of massively successful (and cult) hits that would define cinema for a next generation: Being John Malkovich, Magnolia, American Beauty, The Green Mile, The Insider, The Matrix. The Summer of ’99 season offers a trip through the year in film on the IMDb‘s 250.

A successful young insurance claims adjuster finds himself comfortable existence literally blown to pieces after two chance encounters: first with his unlikely kindred spirit Marla Singer and then with charismatic anarchist Tyler Durden. However, what initially seems liberating quickly escalates into something that is much less comfortable.

At time of recording, it was ranked 10th on the Internet Movie Database‘s list of the best movies of all-time.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alex towers, brad pitt, charlene lydon, chuck palahniuk, david fincher, edward norton, fight club, film, Movie, podcast, summer of '99, The 250 | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Ad Astra

Posted on September 18, 2019 by Darren

“I am attempting to communicate,” astronaut Roy McBride offers into a microphone, his voice translated into a signal to be broadcast via laser signal out to Neptune, where his long-absent father is lurking in the darkness.

Although the film is nominally set in the “near future”, director James Gray pitches Ad Astra as a nostalgia piece. It is Heart of Darkness (really Apocalypse Now) by way of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it also has faint shades of Star Wars in its portrayal of a father-son schism elevated to cosmic drama. Ad Astra presents the universe as a stark-yet-beautiful place, and the film itself fits that aesthetic. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema has experience making space look stunning from Interstellar, and that carries over to the rich-yet-sterile look of Ad Astra.

Spaced out.

There are times when Ad Astra feels a little too arch and a little too dry in its meditative space odyssey. Roy’s constant internal monologue walks a fine line between profundity and self-parody. The film locks itself so firmly to Roy’s perspective, and nestles itself so snugly inside his head, that the world around him occasionally feels illusory. Of course, all of this is intentional. Gray clearly intends to contrast Ad Astra with the obvious epic space adventures to which it is indebted, and his stylistic sensibility certainly allows it to stand apart.

Ad Astra is a vivid story of extraterrestrial alienation, just one that doesn’t happen to feature any aliens.

Shock and launch.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 2001: A Space Odyssey, ad astra, brad pitt, film, Movie, non-review review, review | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood

Posted on July 31, 2019 by Darren

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is a fairy tale, for better and for ill.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: #metoo, allegations, brad pitt, empathy, film, forgiveness, Harvey Weinstein, hollywood, Leonardo diCaprio, Movie, non-review review, nostalgia, once upon a time in hollywood, quentin tarantino, review, violence | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Allied

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Darren

There is something of the uncanny about Allied, a pervading sense of “not-quite-right-ness” that pervades the film.

In some ways, that vague feeling of uncanniness recalls director Robert Zemeckis’ work in stop-motion computer animation in the earlier years of the century. There was something deeply uncomfortable about the director’s work on films like The Polar Express or A Christmas Carol, a sense of strange lifelessness beneath meticulously and painstakingly crafted exteriors. Zemickis’ computer-generated experiments often felt like they were trying too hard to mimic something organic and spontaneous.

Marryin’ Marion

There is a similar sentiment to Allied, which plays very much as a love letter to classic Hollywood cinema. Indeed, the opening forty minutes of the film are dedicated to a very stylish couple operating out of “French Morocco.” Inevitably, their clandestine dealings bring them to a version of Casablanca that seems rooted more in Hollywood history than in reality. Unfolding against the backdrop of the Second World War, dealing with themes of love and betrayal, and starring a bona fides movies star, Allied feels very much like an approximation of a classic movie.

However, it never quite gets there.

Casa closed.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: allied, brad pitt, film, marion collitard, non-review review, review, robert zemeckis | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Fury

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Darren

Fury is an apocalyptic glimpse of warfare.

Unfolding in the last days of the Second World War, as Allied forces pour into Germany from all sides, there’s a sense that this is the end. This is the abyss. As the introductory text explained, Hitler had declared a doctrine of “total war” against these invading forces. Every man woman and child was to be mobilised against the advancing armies, in the hope that it might somehow slow down the Allied war machine. If you throw enough people at it, you might do some damage – even if it is just clogging the gears.

He will strike down with Fury-ous anger…

A movie about a tank crew enduring these last few days, Fury gets considerable mileage out of that image – of human flesh falling before the unstoppable and inevitable machine. At a couple of points in the movie, characters die with their faces quite literally down in the mud. At other points, bodies are crushed beneath the tracks of the eponymous vehicle. Towards the climax, we encounter a body so thoroughly squashed beneath the weight of the Allied advanced that it seems like an empty uniform.

Fury is at its best when it captures the sheer unrelenting terror and horror of the advancing war machine – the nihilism of fighting a war that has already been decided, and the bleak inevitability of large-scale slaughter.

Fog of war…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brad pitt, David Ayer, film, Fury, Jon Bernthal, michael pena, Movie, non-review review, review, second world war, shia labeouf, tank | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Fight Club

Posted on June 4, 2014 by Darren

Fight Club was released in 1999, and seems to perfectly capture a brief moment in the history of disemfranchised American masculinity.

Situated between the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror, Fight Club is the story of disenfranchised middle-class masculinity, a cultural group gripped by sense of impotence and despair and lost amid an era of financial prosperity and material success. “We’re the middle children of history, man,” Tyler Durden informs his followers. “No purpose or place. We have no Great War… no Great Depression.” It’s a line that gets more bitterly ironic with each re-watch.

A film frequently misunderstood by a significant portion of its fans and its critics, Fight Club is perhaps the quintessential cult film of the nineties. A clever hook that encourages further viewings, a mean subversive streak and a bleak irreverence that is impossible to look away from, Fight Club manages to perfectly encapsulate a moment of shared cultural consciousness and insecurity.

Seeking a friend at the end of the world…

Note: This review contains spoilers for Fight Club. Consider yourself warned.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brad pitt, class warfare, david fincher, ed norton, fight club, film, helena bonham carter, masculinity, Movie, non-review review, review, the narrator | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Counsellor

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Darren

There are two ways of looking at The Counsellor, both handily articulated by the movie itself.

At one point, two characters engage in an abstract conversation about grief. They speak on the phone about what it means to lose something that is irreplaceable, and what that does to a person. They speak in metaphors and lyrical turns of phrase, dancing around the issue at hand. One participant in the conversation recounts the story of Spanish poet Machido, who managed to channel his grief into beautiful and moving poetry. Poetry woven from misery and suffering, beautiful and yet torturous. Much like The Counsellor itself, a story about corruption and consequences and greed and wraith, articulated with thoughtful elegance.

There’s a lot going on under the hood…

At another point, one character regales another with a tale of his strange sexual misadventures. Awkward metaphors are used to describe exactly what went down, as the other character (and the audience) watch on in a state of awkward disbelief. Using surprisingly elegant language – never at a loss for words to describe a truly surreal turn of events – the storyteller crafts a stunning portrait of a bizarre encounter. Trying to make sense of it all, the listener articulates the thought running through the mind of most of the audience. “Why did you feel the need to tell me that?”

The Counsellor straddles both extremes almost recklessly, veering from a sophisticated and thoughtful moral tale into something grotesquely indulgent and almost distractingly oblique. During one conversation, the seductive Malkina asks her lover Renier how he sees things playing out. He can’t help but imagine two contrasting extremes. With just a hint of self-awareness, Malkina point out that there’s a middle that Renier just isn’t seeing.