films | the m0vie blog

262. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (#250)

Posted on November 27, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.

In the countryside, a married man finds himself tempted by a visitor from the city. Deciding to murder his wife and escape from his mundane life, the man has a last minute change of heart. Their passion reignited, the married couple embark on an adventure to the big city, where they might get lost in the crowds and perhaps find each other once again.

At time of recording, it was ranked 250th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: f.w. murnau, films, Fox, German Expressionism, history, hollywood, Movies, murnau, silent cinema, sunrise, sunrise: a song of two humans | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Squaring the Circle with Nostalgic Sequels Like “The Rise of Skywalker” and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”…

Posted on November 22, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife this weekend, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the larger trend of the modern nostalgia sequels, and the paradoxes at play within the genre.

By their very nature, belated sequels like Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens require the heroes to have left something unfinished or undone for years or even decades. Often, this involves forcing the heroes’ children to effectively grapple with the exact same problem that haunted their parents. There’s a recurring theme of generational failure running through these stories, a sense that the failure of these older heroes to wrap up their own stories exists at odds with the nostalgia that powers such stories.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: films, generation, generational sequels, ghostbusters: afterlife, in the frame, legacyquels, memory, Movies, nostalgia, sepia, the rise of skywalker | Leave a comment »

261. Gladiator (#44)

Posted on November 20, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guests Stacy Grouden and Joe Griffin, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.

As Rome extends its dominion over the rest of the world, General Maximus Decimus Meridius dreams only of returning home to his family. However, fate has other plans. When Maximus winds up accidentally involved in a sinister conspiracy surrounding the beloved Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his entire life is thrown into chaos. Maximus finds himself abandoned and left for dead. Recovered by a slave trader, Maximus is sold to an older entertainment manager Proximo, who sees a lot of potential in “the Spaniard.”

At time of recording, it was ranked 44th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: academy awards, america, best picture, brutality, Commodus, emperor, empire, epics, films, hollywood, joe griffin, masculinity, maximus, Movies, myth, Oscars, podcast, politics, ridley scott, rome, russell crowe, spectacle, stacy grouden, The 250, the end of history, violence | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” as a Romantic Comedy…

Posted on October 17, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist today. With Venom: Let There Be Carnage releasing in Irish cinemas this weekend, it seemed like as good an opportunity as any to take a look at the film.

Like its predecessor, Let There Be Carnage isn’t really a functional superhero movie, at least in the sense that modern audiences understand the genre. It’s lumpy, it’s irrational, it’s more interested in immediate thrills than world building. However, despite this, Let There Be Carnage is a surprisingly effective romantic comedy. It’s built around many of the same conventions and adheres to many of the same beats, telling a heart-warming story of an alien symbiote and its parasite.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: escapist, films, rom-coms, romance, romantic comedies, Television, the escapist, venom, venom: let there be carnage | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Venom” as a Superhero Throwback…

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the pending release of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at Venom.

Venom is not a good movie. It is a mess of a movie. It is chaotic, random, unstructured, nonsensical. However, it is interesting. What is particularly interesting about Venom is the way in which it feels like something of a throwback to an era of a different kind of superhero movie. Venom recalls the superhero movies from the turn-of-the-millennium, films that played faster and looser with their established characters without worrying about fidelity or faithfulness. There’s something interesting in looking at Venom as a superhero movie out of time.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: comic books, Eddie Brock, enimem, films, in the frame, superhero movies, the escapist, tom hardy, venom | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Christopher Nolan’s Deal at Universal…

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist today. With the news that Christopher Nolan will be making his next movie at Universal, there was some extreme internet reaction to the deal that Nolan signed.

The overblown and performative online outrage is interesting, and says a lot about the internet’s strange obsession with Christopher Nolan as the only director who really gets to make personal projects at this level. Indeed, the most interesting thing about the internet outrage was how ill-informed it was. Nolan’s terms aren’t especially unusual in the world of directors working at that level. Nolan’s deal is similar to those struck with directors like Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino or even Tyler Perry. It is business as usual.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: Christopher Nolan, deals, directors, films, hollywood, Movies, universal pictures | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Pandemic’s Failed Streaming Revolution…

Posted on August 9, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With disappointing box office for Black Widow and Jungle Cruise, and pending lawsuits from actors like Scarlet Johansson, it seemed like a good time to dive back into the ongoing debate about streaming during the pandemic.

With cinemas closed and audiences trapped at home, the pandemic was the perfect testcase for the viability of streaming as a sustainable long-term business model for major Hollywood studios. Many of these studios had been pushing for something like this for decades, to effectively vertically integrate production and delivery. However, with a year of experimentation in the rear view mirror, it increasingly seems like the streaming revolution promised by the pandemic is a bit of a dud.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: black widow, cinema, digital, films, home media, jungle cruise, Movies, pandemic, reviews, straight to streaming, streaming, theatres | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Promise and Peril of “Dune: Part One”…

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Last week, footage from the upcoming Dune adaptation was filmed for critics and press to build attention. One of the more interesting revelations from these screenings was that the movie apparently comes with subtitle Dune: Part One.

On one level, this is not really a surprise. It was been reported for years now that the upcoming adaptation would only cover a certain amount of the source novel. However, there is a certain boldness to including a “part one” subtitle on the cinematic release. In one sense, it harks back to the trend in the 2010s of splitting popular books into multi-part adaptations. However, it also suggests the blurring of boundaries between media, implying that this is really the first part of a two-part miniseries, where the production of a second part is contingent upon the commercial performance of the first.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: dune, dune: part one, films, harry potter, in the frame, Movies, the escapist, twilight | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Escapist Movie Podcast – “Will Black Widow Have Us Russian Back to Cinemas?”

Posted on July 13, 2021 by Darren

The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard and Richard Newby for the twenty-first episode of the year. With the release of Black Widow on streaming and in cinemas, there was only one movie to discuss. So we went for a deep dive into Marvel’s interquel, its character-centric movie for a dead Avenger.

You can listen to back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts! | Tagged: agency, black widow, box office, comedy, feminism, films, humour, jack packard, Marvel Cinematic Universe, mcu, Movies, podcast, prequels, richard newby, the escapist movie podcast | Leave a comment »

232. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (-#78)

Posted on April 24, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Richard Drumm and Niall Glynn, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, John R. Leonetti’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

Liu Kang, Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage have just won the Mortal Kombat tournament, saving Earthrealm from Outworld. However, the villainous Shao Kahn does not accept victory so easily. Breaking the rules of the tournament, Kahn and his army of monsters launch a full-scale invasion of Earth. Can our heroes stop “the merger” in time?

At time of recording, it was ranked 78th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.