hollywood | the m0vie blog

Watch! New Fast & Furious 6 Trailer!

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Darren

The folks from Universal Pictures Ireland just sent over these two clips from The Fast & the Furious 6. I actually quite liked Fast Five, so I’m a little curious if the franchise can maintain the relatively light touch and no-nonsense action movie vibe for another instalment. I remember watching one of the trailers at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival before the surprise film. The audience reacted much more strongly to two minutes of the tank and highway mayhem of The Fast & the Furious 6 than to a full two hours of the somewhat sterile Hollywood-violence-in-London of Welcome to the Punch.

Anyway, check them out below and let me know what you think.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Action film, fast & furious, Fast Five, hollywood, jameson dublin international film festival, London, universal studios, Vin Diesel | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Tower Heist

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Darren

Hollywood has always had a strange way of reacting to current trends and realities as they exist outside the multiplex. Films tend to take a while to react to shifting cultural phenomena. That said, changes in response to particular incidents can be relatively swift. Gangster Squad was famously re-shot following the Aurora shootings and released less than a year later. Although still in the early stages of its production, Zero Dark Thirty was heavily re-worked after Osama Bin Ladin had been shot and killed. However, it’s the broader changes that Hollywood takes longer to acknowledge.

The Dark Knight was praised by The Washington Times as “the first great post-Sept. 11 film”, but this was in 2008 – almost seven years after the attacks. The 9/11 zeitgeist still lingers over American film and television. However, it’s telling that – only recently – have we seen reactions to the financial crisis creep into contemporary blockbuster cinema, as the studios try to acknowledge the shifting economic reality.

Tower Heist is very clearly an attempt to capitalise on some of the anger and the hurt generated by the failure of banks and official bodies to protect the average citizen from the financial collapse. It’s confused, muddled and a little disjointed, even if the intentions seem noble. It still feels a little disappointing that it took almost half a decade to produce this rather bland reaction.

A crash course in economics…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Aurora, ben stiller, Casey Affleck, eddie murphy, film, GaboureySidibe, Gangster Squad, hollywood, Jewellery, Julianne Hough, michael pena, Movie, Movies, non-review review, review, Ryan Seacrest, Tower Heist, Washington Times, Zero Dark Thirty | Leave a comment »

Boy, Is My Face Yellow: The Cloud Atlas Yellow-Face Non-Issue

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Darren

Damn you, international release schedule! I really wanted to to weigh in on the whole Cloud Atlas “yellow face” controversy that was raging at the end of 2012, but thought it best to wait until I had actually seen the film to offer comment. That just seems like common sense, even if Spike Lee clearly doesn’t agree. Of course, by the time that Cloud Atlas was released in the UK and Ireland, the storm in a teacup had passed, but I still think it’s worth commenting upon.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Bae Doona, Ben Whishaw, Chung Ling Soo, Cloud Atlas, David Gyasi, Doona Bae, Halle Berry, hollywood, Hugh Grant, hugo weaving, Ireland, Jim Sturgess, tom hanks, Tom Tykwer, United States, Wachowski | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Gangster Squad

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Darren

To suggest that Gangster Squad favours style over substance feels like an understatement. Although the prologue claims that Gangster Squad was “inspired” by the true story of Mickey Cohen, it seems to favour mythic figures and sweeping action over real characters and nuanced drama. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. For most of its runtime, Gangster Squad feels like a trashy and update of a forties or fifties B-movie, cheap and nasty far executed with enough speed and charm to entertain. Occasionally the movie seems to falter – it clumsily attempts to shoehorn in some social commentary into this bright and colourful vigilante tale – but director Ruben Fleischer works well to keep things balanced. The wheels come off a bit towards the end, as Fleischer demonstrates he handles atmosphere better than action, but for most of its runtime Gangster Squad is a diverting piece of cheesy nostalgia.

This new plan is working gangbusters!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Emma Stone, film, Fleischer, Gangster Squad, hollywood, los angeles, michael mann, Mickey Cohen, Movie, non-review review, public enemies, review, Ruben Fleischer, Ryan Gosling, sean penn | 1 Comment »

My 12 for ’12: Silver Linings Playbook & Earning Your Happy Ending

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Darren

I’m counting down my top twelve films of the year between now and January, starting at #12 and heading to #1. I expect the list to be a little bit predictable, a little bit surprising, a little bit of everything. All films released in the UK and Ireland in 2012 qualify. Sound off below, and let me know if I’m on the money, or if I’m completely off the radar. And let me know your own picks or recommendations.

This is #7…

The term “uplifting” is thrown around a lot these days. Happy endings are very funny things. They seem to be a given for most major Hollywood films, and so there’s a degree of predictability to them. And yet, despite that, there’s also usually a sense that they are somewhat contrived or manipulated or otherwise the result of a rigged game. In order to raise the stakes, films will generally put our characters in peril, and create a massive sense of jeopardy for our heroes to overcome in order to secure the inevitable happy ending. However, as time goes on, we become increasingly cynical and sceptical, so those stakes get higher and higher. The ending remains guaranteed, so making the threat so much more menacing means we have to suspend greater and greater levels of disbelief in order to accept that everybody involved lived happily ever after.

Your ability to accept Silver Linings Playbook will directly correspond to your ability to accept an improbably neat happy ending. However, what distinguishes David O. Russell’s latest film from the bulk of the other “uplifting” examples of modern cinema is the fact that the stakes manage to seem far more emotional and psychological than literal and tangible, and that the characters involved feel so much more real.

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Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: A Farewell to Arms, Academy Award, arts, bradley cooper, British Isles, Cinema of the United States, David O'Russell, David O. Russell, film, Happy ending, hollywood, Ireland, January, Jennifer Lawrence, Lykke Li, Movie, Pat, robert deniro, Silver Linings Playbook, The Silver Linings Playbook: A Novel, Tiffany | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Argo

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Darren

Argo might not seem like it, with the action unfolding amidst the Iranian embassy siege and the stakes involved in the rescue of six hostages, but it is something of an affectionate love letter to cinema from Ben Affleck, who is emerging as one of the most talented actors-writers-directors of our time. From the moment that the grain scratches across the retro Warner Brothers logo to the closing credits where fact and fiction compare and contrast, Argo feels like a celebration of movie magic. Perhaps it’s a little tooself-congratulatory at points, as films made by Hollywood about Hollywood tend to be, but Affleck’s direction keeps the movie surprisingly focused. The film maker does an exceptional job wringing real tension from a true story – no small accomplishment, and a testament to his ability.

Standing out from the crowd…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Affleck, alan arkin, Alice Cooper, Argo, ben affleck, Bryan Cranston, Central Intelligence Agency, film, hollywood, iran, Iran hostage crisis, Movie, non-review review, review, Titus Welliver, Tony Mendez, United States | 4 Comments »

Mondo Poster Monster Mania!

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Darren

I do love Mundo. Yet I have still to buy one of their distinctive poster redesigns. That might change, if I can get my hands on one of these, a collection of Universal Monster Movie poster redesigns from some wonderful artists. I especially love Francesco Francavilla’s take on The Invisible Man. Anyway, I had the pleasure of picking up the Universal Monster Movie Blu Ray Collection, and I’ll be jumping into it over Halloween. That said, it looks pretty fantastic, and these posters are a great way to celebrate some of the truly iconic creature features Hollywood has produced.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Blu-ray Disc, Film poster, halloween, hollywood, Mondo, Movie, poster, universal monsters | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Team America – World Police

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Darren

There’s a strong argument to be made that Team America: World Police is perhaps the best comedy made in the past decade. It’s certainly the most politically astute, and certainly one of the more thoughtful commentaries on American foreign policy to emerge in the wake of 9/11. Like a lot of the work of Stone and Parker, it’s tone is incredibly juvenile and even puerile, with the pair never meeting a bad-taste gag that they don’t love. However, this decidedly low-brow sense of humour is coupled with a more sophisticated and sharp political wit that allows the movie to be topical without seeming preachy, observant without being heavy-handed, and veryfunny without ever being too earnest. That’s a winning combination.

Patriot Games…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alec baldwin, America World Police, Arc, Arc de Triomphe, Coca-Cola, Croissant, Detroit, Eiffel Tower, film, Frère Jacques, Gerry Anderson, hollywood, Movie, Musée du Louvre, non-review review, paris, review, team america, team america: world police, United States, University of Nebraska, University of Nebraska system, World Police | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Virtuosity

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Darren

Virtuosity is a hybrid monster, a veritable Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from various ideas and concepts you’ve seen done elsewhere and better. In a way, it feels like the logical combination of Hollywood’s fascination with two nineties genres that the studios never really understood. One part cybernetic internet-era technological thriller to one part serial killer movie, Virtuosity feels like a volatile cocktail that needs to be handled with care. If there is a way to work this curious blend of genres, it’s with a very delicate and nuanced. Unfortunately, neither Eric Bernt’s script nor Brett Leonard’s direction can really make anything of what should at least be a pulpy premise. Russell Crowe does do an excellent job as the cybernetic serial killer, though.

Crowe’s agent should screen his scripts better…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Brett Leonard, Caesars Palace, Charles Manson, classical music, denzel washington, Eric Bernt, history, hollywood, Janitor, Ludwig van Beethoven, murder, Piano, russell crowe, serial killer, Sid, SID 6.7, The Great Kat, Virtuosity | 4 Comments »

The Stars That Never Were: The “Next Big Thing” That Never Quite Happened…

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Darren

I was watching Safe House over the weekend. It was fairly okay, but I couldn’t get over the fact that I was watching Ryan Reynolds headlining a film with Denzel Washington. It was only last year that it seemed Reynolds was being given a massive push by Hollywood. It’s always interesting to look at the actors who received a very substantial push from Hollywood, only to barely miss their shot at legitimate stardom – those actors and actresses heralded as “the next big thing”, seemingly the subject of every talk show and newspaper clipping for the better part of a year, only to fall a little bit short of the mark and to end up fading. It’s a cruel industry, and it is sometimes a little disheartening to see the way that certain performers get swallowed up whole by it.