film | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: You Only Live Twice

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Darren

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

You Only Live Twice was my favourite when I was younger. It was energetic, witty, bright, colourful and adventurous. The stakes were ridiculously high – no less than the Third World War. Bond’s trip to Japan painted the country as an exotic wonderland to a mind as young as my own. The script was smart and the action was fast-paced – the movie still breezes along even today. The cost of the speed is that the movie is ultimately fairly light – it doesn’t carry anything particularly heavy or thought-provoking. This means that it ends up feeling relatively light-weight when measured against some of Sean Connery’s earlier outings like From Russia With Love or Goldfinger, which worked at least as much with suspense as with action.

Is Bond turning Japanese?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: blofeld, bond, casino royale, Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, ernst stavro blofeld, film, GoldenEye, Goldfinger, ian fleming, james bond, james bond january, japan, Movie, non-review review, on her majesty's secret service, oriental, quantum of solace, review, roald dahl, Roger Moore, sean connery, you only live twice | 8 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Thunderball

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Darren

Thunderball perhaps gets a bit of a bad wrap because it’s perhaps not quite as good as From Russia With Love or Goldfinger. I’d argue that very few Bond films are. Thunderball perhaps represents the first moment that the series came to a rest – the first three installments had been built around establishing the character, his world and the tropes and clichés that viewers could expect from movie to movie. Sometimes concepts evolved gradually (for example, the novelty henchmen grew from the three blind assassins to Klebb and her knifey boots to Oddjob), while sometimes they were introduced suddenly (Bond’s Aston Martin), but by the time the fourth film came around, all these elements had been fairly firmly established. As such, the fourth film seemed to be more intent on consolidating the series than in breaking new ground. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that.

Bond isn't washed up... yet...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Aston Martin, Aston Martin DB5, casino royale, film, From Russia with Love (film), Goldfinger, james bond, james bond january, Movie, nato, non-review review, nuclear wepons, Pussy Galore, review, sean connery, spectre, thunderball | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Goldfinger

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Darren

Even though it was the third movie in an already iconic and hugely successful franchise, I think that Goldfinger is perhaps the film most responsibly for defining the shape of the archetypical Bond film we’ve been watching for fifty years now. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dr. No and From Russia With Love, but this film defined what an audience could expect from a Bond film. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s confident and it’s flamboyant. It’s also a wonderfully fun cinematic experience which manages to be consistently entertaining but never veering too far into the realm of the ridiculous.

A Golden Girl…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 007, Aston Martin, auric goldfinger, Bond girl, film, gert forbe, Goldfinger, ian fleming, james bond, james bond january, Movie, non-review review, oddjob, Paul McCartney, Pussy Galore, review, sean connery | 7 Comments »

Happy New Year…

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Darren

… okay, it isn’t New Year yet, but what better way to ring it in movie-wise than a bit of nostalgia. Last year, Empire celebrated their twentieth anniversary in style by inviting a whole bunch of famous actors to come back and relive some of their iconic movie moments. I can’t agree with all the choices (Minority Report seems a little… modern for Cruise, doesn’t it?), but it was a great little project and one which felt like a celebration of twenty-years of movie-making magic. Click the images or go to Empire for bigger versions (where I could find one – they make a nice screensaver).

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cult, empire, film, happy new year, Movies, nostalgia, photos | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Batman – Gotham Knight

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. This is one of the animated feature films involving the characters from the creators of the original animated shows.

Batman: Gotham Knight was somewhat misleadingly advertised as a “missing link” between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Released in the run-up to Christopher Nolan’s superhero sequel, the film was clearly intended to call to mind the Animatrix, with a strong sense of anime flavouring the variety of shorts on display here. Each was produced by a different studio in a different style from a different author. The result is, as you’d expect, a mixed bag. Some stories are good, some stories are bad – there are interesting stories let down by poor animation and strong stories featuring weak animation. It’s a very mixed bag, which never really seems necessary or exceptional.

Yes, that is a batarang in his hand. And yes, he is happy to see you...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, anime, anthology, arts, batman, batman begins, batman: gotham knight, cartoon, Christopher Nolan, Crispus Allen, film, gotham knight, gothic, kevin conroy, Lucius Fox, Movie, Movies, non-review review, review, Sal Maroni, The Dark Knight, tim burton | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Superman/Batman – Apocalypse

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. This is one of the “stand-alone” animated movies produced by the creative team that gave us the television shows.

Prompted by the massive success of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is the first direct sequel in this line of animated films. It adapts the second arc of Jeph Loeb’s Superman/Batman run, and contains several direct references to the first film (including a news report covering “President Luthor’s impeachment”). While the first film worked on the sheer fun of a super-powered buddy cop film, there’s admittedly less to endear this particular movie to an audience – most notably because this same production team had already animated it as Little Girl Lost, an episode of Superman: The Animated Series.

Some looks CAN kill…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: andre braugher, animated, batman, Batman in film, clancy brown, darkseid, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, Ed McGuinness, film, kevin conroy, Movie, new gods, non-review review, review, summer glaue, superman, superman/batman, superman/batman: apocalypse, Susan Eisenberg, Warner Brothers, wonder woman | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Tron Legacy

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Darren

I admired the original Tron perhaps because of what it attempted rather than because of what it accomplished. It was brave and bold, and it demonstrated more than any other film of its time what was possible with computer-generated imagery – it was a statement of intent and a proof of concept. However, it was also somewhat awkward and clunky – to the point that several sequences in the movie had to hand-animated rather than digitally modelled, because time and technology worked against the crew. It was very much a movie of its time, held back by the status of the industry at the time – and yet inspiring a whole new generation of film-goers and film-makers as to the possibilities. It seems only fitting, perhaps, that Tron: Legacy took so long to make it to the screen – those impressionable young future movie-makers have come of age in the thirty years since the original. In many ways, the sequel feels like a debt is being repaid – here’s a chance to see the original and daring vision as it was imagined all those years ago.

I haven't got a Clu...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 3d, cgi, Computer-generated imagery, Daft Punk, dark knight, disney, film, film review, Filmmaking, jeff bridges, michael sheen, Movie, non-review review, tr0n, tron, tron legacy review, tron: legacy | 115 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Justice League – New Frontier

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Darren

Justice League: New Frontier is probably the best of the animated direct-to-DVD feature produced by Warner Brothers. It’s an adaptation of Darwyn Cooke’s superb New Frontier, a look at the gap between the Golden Age and the Silver Age of comic book superheroes, an attempt to offer an in-universe explanation for the shift in tone and content in the medium between the forties and the sixties. It’s also a damn good exploration of the shift in American public culture and consciousness, exploring the difference in America’s attitude towards the government, the attempt to reach the stars and the fall of McCarthy-ism. It’s also a damn fine bit of animation.

Some sort of League... possibly for Justice...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, batman, brooke shields, Comics, darwyn cooked, dc comics, film, golden age, hal jordan, john heard, justice league, justice league: new frontier, Justice League: The New Frontier, Justiceleague, Korean War, kyle maclachlin, lucy lawless, Martian Manhunter, Movies, neil patrick harris, new frontier, non-review review, review, silver age, wonder woman | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: The A-Team

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Darren

The A-Team is the latest in a long line of attempts to adapt successful television series (preferably from years or decades past) to the big screen. It essentially suffers from the same weaknesses as other adaptations – it struggles with tone. Much as attempting to remake Miami Vice as a dry and overly self-important drug movie was a mistake, or making Starsky & Hutch as a full-blown comedy misunderstood the appeal of the original series, The A-Team feels too much like it’s working with a premise that it isn’t overly familiar with, trying to fit it into the blockbuster mold – it’s essentially trying to cram a round peg into a square hole. The film does have its charms, but it feels distinctly uncomfortable and more than a little uneven.

"'old on lad's, I've... oh, wait, wrong remake..."

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: a-team, bradley cooper, Dwight Schultz, film, hannibal, liam neeson, Movies, non-review review, review, sharlto copley, star trek: the next generation, starsky & hutch, Television, the a-team | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Batman – Under the Red Hood

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Darren

You did it! You found a way to win and everybody still loses!

– The Joker

The story of Batman, boiled down to its most essential elements, is a tragedy. He’s a character defined by hurt and loss – the suffering and failures he has endured while fighting simply to stay alive in an uncertain world. The reason that the animated Batman: Under the Red Hood works so well is because it manages to capture that observation perfectly in its relatively tight runtime. Over the course of the movie, Batman has several of his rather glaring failures touted out in front of him and – what’s more – faces the possibility that he may himself end up obsolete.