cinema | the m0vie blog

Man of Iron, Feet of Clay: Nothing Succeeds Like Success…

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Darren

A little while ago, I mumbled something about how ‘failure’ didn’t really mean much, despite how often the term was thrown around in discussions about films like Watchmen and Kick-Ass. They generally made their money back, received cult attention and didn’t enter the history books as massive wastes of time or energy – which I figured was kinda fair given that neither example was a box office bomb in the style of, say, Motherhood, Uma Thurman’s last film (opening weekend of £88 at the UK box office – I’m not kidding and I didn’t omit an ‘m’). Still, it looks like success isn’t a particularly better deal, given what is circulating on the web regarding Iron Man 2 and its opening weekend – just shy of $130m, I believe. When is success not success?

There may be blood in the water... but Ivan isn't the only shark circling...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2D, 3d, box office, box office records, cinema, failure, films, iron man, iron man 2, Movies, records, success, thor | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Perrier’s Bounty

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Darren

Mark O’Rowe wrote a play that I had the pleasure of seeing last year called Terminus. The piece, featuring four characters narrating sensational events occurring in and around the city of Dublin in thick Northside accents and with distracting amounts of elloquence, obviously became something of a cult hit – so much so that it returned to the Abbey (our national theatre) earlier this year. I mention this purely because O’Rowe has very much fashioned the script for this Irish film from the same cloth as his theatrical success. The same elements which I enjoyed in Terminus I enjoyed in Perrier’s Bounty, and the same elements I didn’t enjoy were just magnified by the transition to film.

Parting shots?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: brendan gleeson, Cillian Murphy, cinema, dublin, films, Ireland, irish, jim broadbent, mark o'rowe, Movies, non-review review, perrier's bounty, reviews, terminus | 2 Comments »

The Day That 2D Died…

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Darren

I’m not going to bore you with another 3D post. In short, my opinion is thus: I’m not outright against it, but recognise it is a cynical money-making plow that has yet to really add anything to any movie (with the possible exception of Avatar). I just noticed something today which indicates we may have hit the tipping point. And it isn’t the news of an Oscar-baiting drama like Precious being rendered in 3D like I thought it might be. It’s the fact that Clash of the Titans is being advertised as “also in 2D”. It’s in small print in all the ads, but it seems to suggest that the standard movie-viewing experience has now become the smaller, optional one. Something for the cinema-completest rather than the default way of viewing the film. I remember not even last year when rendering a movie in 3D was a selling point of itself, a quirk. Now it appears that we should be treating it as standard for these films, with the 2D screenings being essentially sideshows and extras.

Some would rather stare at Medusa's face than watch the satndard 2D version...

I’m fairly sure that Avatar may have used the same “also available in 2D” line, but there’s a huge difference between Avatar and Clash of the Titans. It might not seem much (in fact, it likely seems very little), but this I think this may be the moment that the impact of 3D has truly sunk in for me, with 2D screenings now being a curiousity and an afterthought, with 3D the norm rather than a bonus.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2D, 3d, also available in 2D, also showing in 2d, avatar, cinema, clash of the titans, films, Movies | 17 Comments »

How Has New Media Affected Cinema?

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Darren

The Internet has given everybody in America a voice. For some reason, everybody decides to use that voice to bitch about movies.

– Holden McNeill, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

There’s been a lot said about new media. Blogging and twitter and facebook and so on, this modern age of new media we live in. I took up blogging as a hobby fairly recently (just under a year), so I’m rather late to the party. There’s a whole host of stuff written about how social networking and the internet have drastically altered civilisation as we know it, so I thought I’d just ponder about cinema and the old, established media.

Where there's a Will, there's a way...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bloggers, blogging, cinema, film, Movies, new media, old media, twitter | 2 Comments »

In Defense of Popcorn…

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Darren

Seriously?

Not cool. Seriously not cool.

The chairperson of Sony, Michael Lynton, has come out urging cinemas to start sideline popcorn and soft drinks in favour of healthy alternatives. Perhaps its an indication of the crazy politically correct world we live in, or maybe it’s a depressing sign of how little he knows about the movie-going experience, but I’m going to draw a line in the sand and say “No more!” Yes – if movies taught me one thing, it’s rhetoric. And the joys of popcorn.

Pop quiz, hot shot... is there a kernel of truth in these rumours? Okay, I'll stop.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cinema, cinema food, cinema-going, films, fizzy drinks, health food, Movies, obesity, popcron | 7 Comments »

No Man is an Island: The Ending of Shutter Island…

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Darren

I’ve probably said too much in my review of Shutter Island already, but the ending of the film merits discussion on its own, away from the chance of spoiling the viewing experience for anyone – much like I did with the ending of Inglourious Basterds.

Maybe Elias Koteas can shed some light on the ending...

Note: As the title and text directly above imply (or explicitly state), this post is about the ending of a movie currently in major release that you may or may not have seen. Reading ahead may ruin your enjoyment of the film if you haven’t already seen it. You have been warned.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cinema, discussion, ending, films, martin scorcese, Movies, Shutter Island, shutter island ending, twist | 6 Comments »

What’s so special about The Special Relationship?

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Darren

I got to see the Irish premiere of Alice in Wonderland at the weekend, thanks to boards.ie and the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, and afterwards there was a Q & A session with Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall. Michael Sheen casually remarked that we’d be seeing the last of Peter Morgan’s “Blair trilogy”, The Special Relationship, hitting screens in about mid-July-ish. It’s been on my must-see list for a while – and the Internet Movie Database had a release date in 2011 last time I checked – but I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised at this particular companion in the tradition “Tony Blair and x” double act format. The Deal gave us Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The Queen gave us Tony Blair and… well, take a guess. The Special Relationship gives us Tony Blair and a US President. Which one? Dennis Quaid (yes, Dennis Quaid) as Bill Clinton. Yep, that’s not the US President I was thinking of either.

The "Special" Relationship... It even sounds like a bro-mance...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bill clinton, biography, cinema, film, george w. bush, Movies, peter morgan, politics, the deal, the queen, the special relationship, tony blair | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Deal

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Darren

You know the kind of movie The Deal is. It’s about an over-the-hill writer who decides to screw with the Hollywood system and play it against itself, while seducing a beautiful woman and generally just being a cad. In short, it’s a movie writer’s fantasy. That’s by no means a bad thing, to be honest – when done right, you get the dark comedy Robert Altman’s The Player, a story of a writer’s revenge on a corrupt studio executive; unfortunately, when you do it wrong, you end up with a self-indulgent mess like The Deal.

Deal or no deal?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: cinema, elliott gould, films, hollywood, ll cool j, meg ryan, Movie, non-review review, review, the deal, william h. macy | Leave a comment »

Three Dimensions of Drama?

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Darren

Hmm… Last year I wasn’t so sure about 3D being the future of movie-making that everyone was lauding it it to be. And, being honest, part of me is still on the fence. The two biggests revolutions in the distribution of popular cinema have been the advent of sound and the introduction of consistent and effective colour. Home media is probably third, but that’s probably not what the major studios want to hear as they attempt to milk every possible cent out of the big screen in this era of pirated movies and downloads and such. Avatar pretty much knocked the digital 3D thing out of the park and demonstrated that the concept had a life beyond kids flicks like Coraline and Monsters vs. Aliens (the only time I mention those two together, I promise) and horror flicks like My Bloody Valentine and The Final Destination. James Cameron has taken what Alfred Hitchock memorably derided as a seven-day fad and made it matinee fare. And, of course, Hollywood has noticed. Clash of the Titans, one of the early summer blockbusters this year, is being reworked into 3D before release – probably as a direct result of Avatar’s success. Still, if 3D is to be as huge a game changer as colour or sound was, it needs to become the norm for films produced – it needs to become dominant. So when we are we going to see 3D prestige pieces?

The way things are meant to 3D?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 3d, avatar, cinema, clash of the titans, colour films, film, film making, future, future of cinema, home entertainment, innovations, Movies | Leave a comment »

St. Stephen’s Green Omniplex to Open in Dublin…

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Darren

This is just a short post about a fairly exciting piece of news that’s broken (seemingly out of nowhere) over the past few days about the developement of a massive Omniplex Cinema at St. Stephen’s Green. It’s interesting that the southside hasn’t really had a ‘big’ cinema – the Screen is a landmark, but three screens isn’t really massive – and it’s something I’ve noticed (I live on the northside, but I work on the southside). I guess we’ll have to wait and see how the idea works out, but something occurs to me: how come we aren’t getting an Imax screen?