Emily Blunt | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

One of the joys of a film festival like the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is that you get to see films that take you by surprise. Sometimes they are small foreign dramas which will never get a major release here, and thus haven’t been discussed to death on-line or in-print, but occasionally it’s a movie premiere of a big upcoming release which will impress. The Adjustment Bureau is hitting screens around the world next Friday, but film fanatics in Dublin were treated to a sneak peek (the movie’s second public screening and the first in Europe). As a movie that I honestly wasn’t expecting too much of, based on the trailers in front of every major release since last August that seemingly couldn’t decide on the genre of the film, what did I make of it?

A bathroom break...

I loved it.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Adjustment Bureau, blade runner, David Norris, dublin, Emily Blunt, films, George Nolfi, jameson dublin international film festival, matt damon, Movies, non-review review, Philip K. Dick, premieres, review, Terence Stamp, total recall | 17 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Wolfman

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Darren

The Wolfman was clearly intended to kickstart a relaunch of Universal’s Monster Movie franchises, updating them for a whole new generation of movie-goers. It was intended to call back to a whole generation of horror films, starring Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff and so on. However, director Joe Johnston’s attempt to update the monster movie for a new generation is a muddled affair, simple and straight-forward, but clouded with unnecessary blood, gore and CGI.

No escape claws...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Benicio del Toro, Boris Karloff, Emily Blunt, frankenstein, horror, joe johnston, Lon Chaney, monster movie, monster movies, Movies, non-review review, review, universal monster movies, universal monsters, universal studios, werewolf, wolfman | 2 Comments »

And They Lived Happily Ever After? Will Gnomeo & Juliet Have a Happy Ending?

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Darren

It started out like Romeo and Juliet, but it ended up in tragedy.

– Milhouse Van Outen

I have to be honest. I studied Romeo and Juliet in secondary school and I just didn’t get it. Not the fancy-ass language or the outdated words, but the appeal of the play. Seriously? This piece of work right here is frequently regarded as one of the romantic pieces of literature ever written? A play about a teenage fling which ends in suicide? Where Romeo falls for Juliet on the rebound and they never get to spend any time together? Where a convenient third-act quarantine serves to lead to the play’s tragic conclusion? I never really got the appeal of the work – I mean, it was good and smart, but it struck me as a lot more cynical and bitter than most seem to think it is. And so this trailer for Gnomeo and Juliet arrives, and I’m wondering – will a whole generation of children end up scarred by the image of gnome suicide?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Characters in Romeo and Juliet, elton john, Emily Blunt, english, Gnomeo & Juliet, james mcavoy, Michael Caine, Movies, plays, pop culture, romance, romeo + juliet, the bard, tragedy, William Shakespeare | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Young Victoria

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Darren

There are a few period dramas about classical nobility released every year. Most of them, such as The Dutchess are fairly bland and lifeless affairs – indeed, it’s hard to create an energy or dynamism around a world most of us have never known which is built upon self-restraint and self-control. The tendency is towards po-faced self-importance and excessive melodrama. While I would be hard pressed to describe The Young Victoria as “exciting” or “thrilling”, it is one of the better period pieces I have seen to focus on the British Royal Family, perhaps because – despite the impressive scope of its subject matter (Queen Victoria was, as the end titlecard informs us, the longest-serving monarch of Great Britain) – it remains tightly focused. It’s a story of courtship and romance, loyalty and dependency. It’s a genuinely and honestly romantic film.