film | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Darren

We Need to Talk About Kevin is powerful, visceral cinema. It’s the kind of movie that makes you want to take a nice long, hot shower after coming home. It’s unsettling in a way that doesn’t rely on cheap shocks or gratuitous violence – it just makes you feel unclean. Truth be told, I think that any film taking this sort of subject should feel this uncomfortable – I’m not sure I could stomach a film about this sort of thing that wasn’t uncomfortable. However, while the disjointed structure of the film adds a wonderful complexity and sense of uncertainty, I can’t help but feel that certain aspects were a little tooambiguous – falling into the familiar trap that one must have read the book in order to fully grasp everything that’s going on. Still, it makes for a very unsettling viewing experience.

Baby trouble...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Eva, Ezra Miller, film, john c. reilly, Kevin, Lionel Shriver, Lynne Ramsay, Movie, non-review review, review, Rory Kinnear, Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Old School

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Darren

It’s tempting to look back at Old School in the wake of the massive success of The Hangover and claim “I saw Todd Phillips’ potential first!” After all, massive critical, commercial and audience hits don’t come out of nowhere, and the early work of a given director should probably give some indication of their hidden talent. However, I don’t really see too much of The Hangover in Old School, a film that I like, even if I don’t love it. There are a few similarities in content and structure, but I still can’t see anything in the film that would have led to me to “keep an eye” on Phillips. It’s a solid fratboy comedy, but it’s not anywhere near a classic.

Ferrell was on a hot streak when this came out...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 40 Year Old Virgin, Ellen Pompeo, film, Hangover, Jeremy Piven, Luke Wilson, Movie, non-review review, Old School, review, Todd Phillips, Vince Vaughn, will ferrell | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Shrink

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Darren

There’s a good movie to be found somewhere within Shrink. I’m just not sure exactly what it is. Ensemble dramas are a lot tougher to get right than they may initially seem: lining up a variety of interesting plot lines is only half the battle, as the movie has to balance these threads and ensure that all remain intriguing, while none dominate. Shrink doesn’t really do that. Using Kevin Spacey’s “self-medicating” Los Angeles psychologist as a jumping-off point, the film never really finds a compelling hook for us – and the performances aren’t strong enough to get us to invest in the characters colliding and intersecting like balls on a pool table.

Small problems...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: A Bug's Life, colin farrell, film, films, hollywood, kevin spacey, los angeles, Movies, non-review review, review, robin williams, Shrink | Leave a comment »

The Criterion Criteria: Why Are Criterion Blu Rays Region Coded?

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Darren

The Criterion Collection is incredible – it really is the ideal back-catalogue for anybody who considers themselves a fan of good cinema well-presented. The company basically releases top-of-the-line DVD and blu ray collections of old and new films, each presented with the greatest of care, and with a wealth of special features, often including director’s cuts, in-depth documentaries, essays and other treasures. Hell, the company’s laser-disc division invented the notion of a “commentary”, producing one over their release of the classic King Kong. I am a fan, as I think that any cinephile is a fan. That said, I was shocked to read of a rather disturbing development: Criterionhave region-coded their blu ray releases. I understand the idea of region-coding, but this really seems like a strange case.

It's a monstrous injustice... (Godzilla, #594)

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Blu-ray Disc, blu-ray regions, Criterion Collection, DVD, dvd regions, film, Godzilla, home cinema, king kong, Man Who Fell To Earth, Movies, Region-coding, Regional lockout, terry gilliam, United States | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Thing (1982)

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Darren

John Carpenter’s The Thing is almost the perfect late-night Halloween viewing experience. It’s one of those movies that is gloriously trashy entertainment, with any number of visceral thrills, but also more deeply unnerving. Updating the 1951 The Thing From Another World, and arguably remaining truer to the original story, Who Goes There?, John Carpenter’s adaptation perfectly captures the unnerving paranoia of a world where there’s no promise that anybody is exactly what they claim to be. In space, nobody can hear you scream, but your odds aren’t too much better in the white Antarctic tundra.

What sort of Thing could do that?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Alien (film), Carpenter, film, John Carpenter, Kurt Russell, Movie, non-review review, review, ridley scott, the thing, The Thing (1982), Thing, Thing From Another World, William F. Nolan | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Despicable Me

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Darren

I think that, as a general trend, the quality of computer-animated films has increased significantly over the past number of years. I think there are a variety of reasons for this – the most obvious being that it seems to be easier to do, and so more companies are trying; but also because there’s an increasing body of work that offers hints on what to do and how to do it. While Pixar remain the undisputed champions of computer-generated animation, I think we’ve seen an increasing number of high-quality releases from all studios in the past few years. Despicable Mesees a new studio throwing their hat into the ring and it makes for an impressive debut. While there’s still room for improvement, Despicable Me is fast and fun, and remarkably uncynical for a children’s movie about super-villains.

Aiming for the moon...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: despicable me, film, Illumination Entertainment, IPod, jason segel, Megamind, Movie, non-review review, Pierre Coffin, review, Shark Tale, Steve Carell | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Ides of March

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Darren

It’s very hard to make a movie about politics without feeling a little bit forced – as if you’re shoehorning in a particular viewpoint or an ideology, setting up strawmen for the movie to bulldoze over on the way to the final scene. It’s to director (and actor) George Clooney’s credit that The Ides of March manages to avoid seeming too preachy or too staged, instead opting to comment on the nature of political integrity, rather than accusing specific ideologies of having it or lacking it. Set within a Democratic Presidential Primary, the movie shrewdly avoids focusing on an ideological or political gap, instead contemplating the harsh realities of any political maneuvering.

Are the gloves coming off?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: bill clinton, Clooney, film, george clooney, Ides of March, Morris, Movie, non-review review, Ohio, politics, review, Ryan Gosling, The ides of March, United States | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Get Carter

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Darren

Get Carter still makes a very unsettling viewing experience, one that feels no more comfortable for the fact that it has been forty years since the film was originally released. The fact that the film’s grim and perverted vision of modern Britain has been imitated countless times doesn’t diminish its impact. On one level, Get Carter is a very British exploitation film, but it’s also a fairly powerful look at the urban underworld festering in surroundings far too familiar.

All washed up?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Carter, Cinema of the United Kingdom, film, Get Carter, Jack Carter, Jimmy Carter, London, Michael Caine, Mike Hodge, Mike Hodges, Movie, Newcastle, non-review review, pornography, review, Ted Lewis | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Contagion

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Darren

It’s somewhat ironic that the biggest fault with Contagion is that it’s not nearly clinical enough. Soderbergh’s exploration of the impact of a mass pandemic actually works best when the director pulls back to give us a high-level overview of a society collapsing, the individual lives reduced – appropriately enough – to microscopic cells in a larger organism in what might be its death throes. It’s these sequences and shots that are brilliantly effective, demonstrating the systemic and group dynamics that enable and facilitate the spread of a deadly bird flu variant, while the more intimate moments feel awkward and shoehorned in, never afforded enough space to develop character or plot lines. Still, if you pull back and look at the big picture, Soderbergh’s latest effort is an engaging ambitious disaster movie.

One sick picture...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: bird flu, Bryan Cranston, Contagion, disease, film, films, Gwyneth Paltrow, hollywood, Horror film, Jennifer Ehle, jude law, kate winslet, laurence fishburne, matt damon, Movies, review, roland emmerich, Soderbergh, Steven Soderbergh | 6 Comments »

Grand Larson-y: Nick Swardson and Being Critical of Comedies…

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Darren

This type of thing happens every once in a while, to the point where it’s almost not really news at all. Kevin Smith took to twitter to lambast critics of his (admittedly) disappointing Cop Out, and studios have a habit of releasing potentially divisive films around critics (look at how they sold G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra). Nick Swardson, who has only come to my attention of late with a solid supporting role in the perfectly adequate but unexceptional 30 Minutes or Less, has taken to lashing out at the critics who didn’t respond especially favourably to Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star. He suggests:

I knew the critics were going to bury us. It was a softball. They were waiting, waiting to hate that movie. It’s kind of funny that they get their rocks off on reviews like that. They review The King’s Speech, then they review Bucky Larson.

…

It’s a lot of work and a lot of reviewers aren’t going into that movie to like it. They don’t want to like it. None of those reviewers was psyched to see Bucky Larson and laugh. They go in with the mentality, fuck these guys for making another movie. They go in there to kind of headhunt. It makes me laugh because it’s just so embarrassing. It makes them look like such morons. You can’t review Avatar then review Bucky Larson. Comedy is so subjective, you know what I mean? To sit there and technically pick it apart is so stupid. We’ve never made movies for critics, so we could give a f***.

There’s obviously more than a hint of bitterness (the last line is very much “well, we don’t care what they think!”), but does Swardson have a point about the difficulty of reviewing comedies?