Posted on July 2, 2009 by Darren
Blu Ray isn’t working quite the magic for home entertainment media that it should. The DVD market share is still falling and Blu Ray can’t seem to rise fast enough to catch it. There’s a lot of talk about whether hard copy media – actually owning a piece of hardware containing the movie – is outdated and the future of media consumption lies in direct downloads, but I don’t ever think that people will stop buying disks or videos or whatever the hard-copy medium of the day is.
The Watchmen Blu Ray allows director Zack Snyder to offer a blow-by-blow account of the movie.
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blu ray, disks, downloads, DVD, films, home entertainment, home media, media, Movies, netflix, optical media, special features, watchmen | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 30, 2009 by Darren
The ability of Transformers 2 to succeed so massively even with the godawful reviews that it is receiving has prompted yet another introspective look at the role that critics do, should and must play in the movie business. It’s a bout the right time of year – last year David Edelstein’s bitchy tirade against a certain blockbuster received such a vigorous lambasting that the author himself had to post an article in defense of his review, prompting other commentators to ask if the critics are out of touch with the public. I didn’t do film studies or go to journalism school. I didn’t do a term-long module on the role of the critic in the arts. Sure, it might sound like a simple enough role – you critique, it’s all there in the verb – but should you try to tell people if they’ll like the movie, or simply whether you did? If you know you hold a minority opinion, should you make some sort of concession to that? I don’t know, but the question interests me greatly.
The film critic in its default position...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: box office, critics, film criticism, film critics, film discussion, films, Movies, reviews, transformers 2 | 10 Comments »
Posted on June 27, 2009 by Darren
I watched Quarantine with my aunt, uncle and brother last night. It was fairly okay – it did pretty much exactly what it promised on the tin, nothing more nothing less – but it was undermined by a fine third that revealed to us (and the characters) the reason for said outbreak. The reason wasn’t particularly smart or original – it was really exactly what you’d expect, which isn’t what you’re looking for in the final twenty minutes of a horror film. It got me thinking, are these horror films scarier the less we know about the beasts lurking in the darkness?
Hangovers were worse than usual at the office Christmas Party - no one could remember where they parked...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: films, george a. romero, horror, horror films, horror genre, horror movies, Movies, night of the living dead, quarantine, the revolution will not be televised, undead, world war z, zombie apocalypse, zombies | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 24, 2009 by Darren
Well, admitting that there’s a problem is the first step. The Academy announced today that next year (in a return to vintage Hollywood tradition) there would be ten nominees for Best Picture. The shadow of the snub of The Dark Knight looms large in the announcement, and though it isn’t explicitly stated in the statement, several commentators have inferred it. While it’s being pitched as some sort of vintage return to form, it’s hard not to see it as an attempt by the Academy to cast a much wider net when it comes to nominees. I agree with the sentiment, but the jury’s still out on the method.
Looking good for an 81-year-old...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: academy awards, AMPAS, films, oscar nominees, Oscars, trinity film review | 5 Comments »
Posted on June 19, 2009 by Darren
Well, if Hollywood is going to aggressively continue its campaign of remakes in a 3D era, I suppose there are worse genres to resurrect than the old “Universal Monster Movie” horror sub-genre. We really should have seen this coming with the impending release of The Wolf Man later in the year, but there are confirmed remakes of The Bride of Frankenstein and The Creature from the Black Lagoon in the works. It seems that Hollywood is as keen to cannibalise its trashy glories as it is to remake its celluloid classics.
Something fishy's going on...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bride of frankenstein, creature from the black lagoon, dracula, films, frankenstein, hollywood, monster movies, Movies, remakes, The Wolf Man, universal monster movies, wolfman | 4 Comments »
Posted on May 27, 2009 by Darren
This weekend sees the release of the only two original (i.e. not a sequel, prequel or spin-off) major releases this May. For the kids – both young and old – we have the newest Pixar film, which is steadily becoming one of the highlights of the movie year. The other film – while firmly awaited by horror aficionados – has snuck up on the rest of us, generating great buzz from preview screenings. Drag Me To Hell is apparently the best horror film in quite some time, and one I am now hotly anticipating, but it got me thinking – whatever happened to the horror genre?
Bruce Campbell just isn't trying any more
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 28 weeks later, alien, bruce campbell, danny boyle, don't look now, drag me to hell, evil dead, films, george romero, gore, horror, Movies, nicholas roeg, sam raimi, stephen king, the mist, the omen, the shining | 4 Comments »
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