film | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Darren

Mr. Peabody & Sherman is solid family entertainment. Too scattershot and inconsistent to really rank among the best of the Dreamworks animated feature films, it does benefit from an endearing energy and momentum – as well as a charming central performance from Ty Burrell as the eponymous super-inventor dog genius. It’s perfectly inoffensive fun that manages to get quite a few laughs, even if it doesn’t tug the heart strings quite as well as it might want to.

A dog and his boy…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, doctor who, dreamworks, film, mister peabody, Movie, mr. peabody, mr. peabody and sherman, mr. peaboyd & sherman, non-review review, review, sherman, time travel | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Darren

In 1987, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street was arguably too subtle in its criticisms of the Wall Street mentality – the philosophy that “greed, for lack of a better word, is good” or that enough can never really enough. After all, the film apparently inspired a whole generation of stock brokers and investment managers, with quite a few aspiring to be their generation’s Gordon Gekko – when the movie’s central point was that Gekko was hardly an idol to worship.

This would seem to explain the rationale of Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, a film that makes Stone’s brutal evisceration of Wall Street excess seem positively mild-mannered. Indeed, the film all but directly acknowledges this fact in an early scene where a “hatchet job” of an article from Forbes (the same article that would lend Belfort his sobriquet “Wolfie!”) prompts a massive upsurge in job applications for Belfort’s Stratton Oakmont.

The money shot…

So, understanding the need to go a bit bigger and larger, The Wolf of Wall Street introduces us to its protagonist, Jordan Belfort, snorting cocaine out of the bodily orifices of a prostitute, and yet somehow descends deeper and deeper into acts of debauchery and excess. It’s an unrelenting and energetic film, that is exhausting and exhilarating. It’s less of a structured story and more a three-hour laundry-list of depravity.

While the last hour of the film (the inevitable “it all comes tumbling down… or does it?” act) can’t maintain the forward moment that make the first two so exhilarating, The Wolf of Wall Street remains proof that Scorsese is an incredible film maker with an almost impossible vigour and enthusiasm for the medium.

Drinking it in…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: corruption, decay, drugs, film, films, jordan belford, Jordan Belfort, leo, Leonardo diCaprio, martin scorsese, Matthew McConaughey, money, Movie, Movies, non-review review, review, sex, vice, Wall Street, Wolf of Wall Street, wolfie | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Devil’s Due

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Darren

The single biggest problem with Devil’s Due is that it’s boring.

There are a lot of other flaws. It’s really creepily xenophobic. It has little interest in the female character carrying this baby. It is completely uninterested in the “found footage” thing, but still commits to using it. It is really just a bunch of clichés that we’ve seen done much better elsewhere. Its protagonists rank incredibly low on the intelligence scale for horror movies, which sets a pretty low baseline to begin with.

However, the most frustrating flaw with this reproductive horror is the fact that it’s just deathly dull.

The belly of the beast…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: antichrist, body horror, devil's due, film, horror, Movie, non-review review, pregnancy, reproductive horror, review, Satan | 5 Comments »

My 12 for ’13: Django Unchained & Suckerpunching Expectations

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Darren

This is my annual countdown of the 12 movies that really stuck with me this year. It only counts the movies released in Ireland in 2013, so quite a few of this year’s Oscar contenders aren’t eligible, though some of last year’s are.

This is number 2…

Slavery seems to have been bubbling away at the back of the American pop cultural consciousness this year. Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln were both Best Picture nominees at this year’s awards ceremony. 12 Years a Slave is making pretty impressive head-way for next year’s Oscars, embarrassing moments like the film’s European marketing aside. They are all superb and moving films, but Tarantino’s Django Unchained is probably the strongest of them.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Christopher Nolan, david cronenberg, django unchained, film, Hans Zimmer, inglourious basterds, Ireland, quentin tarantino, quentintarantino, steve mcqueen, steven spielberg, tarantino, western | 2 Comments »

My 12 for ’13: Gravity & Good Old-Fashioned Simplicity

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Darren

This is number 4…

One of the more interesting aspects of blockbuster cinema over the past decade or so has been the way that bigger movies tend to have become more complicated and ambitious in their storytelling. This isn’t a bad thing, by any measure. The Dark Knight is a plot-driven blockbuster with no shortage of plot complications, reversals and reveals. However, not every blockbuster is as deftly constructed.

There’s been a surge in overly complicated and excessively convoluted blockbusters over the past few years. It’s not enough to have good guys and bad guys and spectacle. There’s a sense that there needs to be more crammed on in there. Double-crosses and triple-crosses, betrayal and redemption, shock reveals and game-changing twists. Bad guys no longer plan to simply destroy the world or kill the good guy, everybody has competing agendas, and big epic blockbusters often struggle to smooth those into a cohesive narrative.

From this year, for example, Star Trek Into Darkness – while still an exceptionally enjoyable film – suffered from an over-complicated plot and a surplus of villainous motivation. The Wolverine featured a fiercely convoluted middle act where it seemed like half-a-dozen bad guys were all trying to kill our hero for different reasons. G.I. Joe: Retaliation featured an evil plot that was not only brilliantly stupid, it was also unnecessarily convoluted.

Gravity serves to buck the trend, offering something of a sharp contrast to this convoluted storytelling. Gravity is a celebration of old-school visual spectacle, guided through a decidedly old-fashioned plot.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Alfonso Cuarón, Blockbuster (entertainment), dark knight, die hard, film, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, games, GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD, Gravity, Ireland, john mcclane, Russia, Ryan Stone, sandra bullock, Star Trek Into Darkness, wolverine | 2 Comments »

My 12 for ’13: Stoker & A Vampire Story Without Vampire

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Darren

This is number 5…

Stoker is one of the most underrated gems of the year. Released early on, Chan-wook Park’s psychological horror easily gets lost in the shuffle. Which is a shame, because it’s a wonderfully disturbing little thriller, one crafted with an incredible eye for beauty. Even the name is somewhat appropriate, evoking the creator of the modern vampire story. Stoker is in essence a vampire movie made without a vampire, although Matthew Goode’s Uncle Charlie is a convenient stand-in.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Chan-wook Park, Charlie, dracula, film, india, Ireland, matthew goode, Mia Wasikowska, Stoker, vampire | 2 Comments »

My 12 for ’13: Only God Forgives & Neon Nightmares…

Posted on December 25, 2013 by Darren

This is number 7…

Few films this year have stayed with me as vividly as the rich and disturbing visual and aural landscape of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives. It’s a decent into a neon hell, a world half-inhabited by the damned and stalked by demons. With Cliff Martinez’s pounding score still echoing through my head long after my last viewing, Only God Forgives is a haunting piece of cinema, a nightmare captured on digital.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Bangkok, Cliff Martinez, Drive, film, God Forgives, Ireland, Julian, Nicolas Winding Refn, Only God Forgives, Ryan Gosling, United States | Leave a comment »

My 12 for ’13: Honorable Mentions

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Darren

Over the next few days, I’ll be revealing my favourite twelve films of 2013. I suspect that it will be a slightly quirky and eccentric list – I doubt anybody but myself will agree on every choice, but I hope that encapsulates the diversity and brilliance of the year that we’ve had. Indeed, I was actually quite impressed with the quality of films that were released in 2013, from large tentpoles through to more intimate and low-key film-making.

In fact, I was so impressed that I thought I’d put together a list of brief honourable mentions of the films that didn’t quite make the cut for my top twelve films of 2013.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: All-America, arts, Associated Press, Big 12 Conference, Byzantium, film, Filmmaking, Hobbit, Horror film, mark o'rowe, Movies, Short Films, To Kill a Mockingbird, United States | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Walking With Dinosaurs – The 3D Movie

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Darren

You never really grow up past the love of dinosaurs. Sure, you are probably never as relentlessly fascinated with the gigantic reptiles as you were when you were a kid, but those prehistoric creatures still garner affection from children of all ages. That was, after all, the basic premise of Jurassic Park, which got a high-profile 20th anniversary re-release this year. It was also the driving force behind Walking With Dinosaurs, the ground-breaking CGI documentary broadcast on the BBC in the UK and on Discovery in America.

So adapting the show to film seems like a logical step, and Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie is a bit of a no-brainer for a holiday family release, especially with families that have children too young to watch The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug or Anchorman: The Legend Continues and who have already seen Frozen. It’s a concept that really sells itself, which makes it incredibly frustrating that Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie goes out of its way to sabotage itself.

“It was a night like this, forty million years ago…”

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 3d film, Avery Brooks, bbc, David Attenborough, Dinosaur, film, Hobbit The, john leguizamo, jurassic park, justin long, kenneth branagh, United States, Walking With Dinosaurs | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Darren

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is very clearly a sentimental life-affirming true story, very clearly pitching itself as an upbeat and hopeful account of one of the most iconic statesmen of our time. A collection of all the “greatest hits” of Mandela’s struggle against oppression and hatred, Mandela is an efficiently calculated piece of cinema. It’s a grand sweeping historical epic that never really pulls back the layers of the character it examines, instead opting (mostly) to film the legend.

And it works. After all, what other world leader in the past half-century can lay claim to such an inspirational narrative? Nelson Mandela’s journey lends itself to this sort of optimistic and inspirational adaptation, and the subject is a comfortable fit for this sort of sweeping life-affirming whirl-wind exploration of Mandela’s personal history.