dr. strangelove | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Monsters vs. Aliens

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Darren

I do quite like Monsters vs. Aliens, even if it feels like it’s trying to do too many vastly different things are once. It’s too goofy and silly to be a genuinely emotional morality tale about appreciating those different than us, while also being too sentimental to work as a sort of a goofy hokey monster mash nostalgia trip. One gets the sense that it could have been a much better film had it opted for one approach rather than the other, instead of trying to straddle the middle ground between them. It’s a shame, because it has some genuinely impressive sequences and warm sense of respect and good humour for all those classic creature features, but it just ends up feeling too much like a standard cookie-cutter modern animated film.

It's a Monster Mash!

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Amazing Colossal Man, animation, arts, dr. strangelove, dreamworks, films, hugh laurie, Monsters Vs Aliens, Movies, non-review review, paul rudd, Reese Witherspoon, review, Seth Rogen | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Dr. Strangelove (Or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Darren

What I’m about to say is grounds for excommunication from the church of film geekdom, but I am not a huge Stanley Kubrick fan. I admire and appreciate his work from a technical level and there are a few of his films I would credit as genuine classics – and yet there are others that I am markedly indifferent to. Cinematic purists will balk when I suggest The Shining – that most commercially Hollywood production – is my favourite of Kubrick’s film. Dr. Strangelove (Or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) is widely regarded as a classic of Cold War cinema, but I must concede that I can’t help but feel a little disconnected from it. Of course quite a large portion of the film (particularly the broader comedy) is still hilarious, but the film refers to a world that I never really knew – I was born in the twilight of the Soviet Union, disconnected from this heated level of nuclear paranoia.

There's nothing strange about the love for this film...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Cold War, doctor strangelove, dr. strangelove, Dr. Strangelove (Or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), film, george c. scott, john f kennedy, Movie, non-review review, Peter Seller, peter sellers, review, slim pickens, Soviet Union, stanley kubrick, Strangelove | 7 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Watchmen (Theatrical Cut)

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Darren

Probably the best we could have hoped for. Which is a guarded compliment at best. The movie has several gaping flaws, both as an adaptation of Alan Moore’s seminal work and also as a film in its own right. And yet it contains more interesting ideas than most prestige dramas, and at least two standout performances. The film is widely inconsistent, sometimes feeling too long in its gratuitous acton or sex scenes, but too short on the actual big ideas that make it thought-provoking. Ultimately, what ties the film down is also what props it up, in a manner: the fact that it is based on one of the most important books of the last quarter century.

Just the three of us...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adaptation, adrian veidt, alan moore, billy crudup, billy crupud, comic book, doctor manhatten, dr. strangelove, ending, film, film adaptation, graphic novel, jackie earle haley, league of extraordinary gentlemen, malin akerman, matt frewer, matthew goode, Movie, non-review review, patrick dean morgan, patrick wilson, review, richard nixon, rorschach, squid, United States, watchmen, zack snyder | 5 Comments »

It’s The End of The World As We Know It – And I Feel Fine

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Darren

So last week we had the box office dominance of Zombieland, a post-apocalyptic comedy. Over the weekend we had the simultaneous broadcast across US network television of five minutes of Emmerich’s newest disaster flick 2012. We also may have the first post-apocalyptic Oscar-nominee in The Road this year. And that’s just in the last three months of the year. Looking back over the last decade alone there have been a million-and-one end-of-the-world thrillers, chillers, comedies and dramas. That’s a lot of apocalypse for a relatively small planet. So, what gives? is there a greater reason for the zeitgeist’s fascination with the end of the world?