Posted on November 30, 2011 by Darren
Puss in Boots is a fun film. It’s a very fun family film that works because it never takes itself too serious. Breaking free of the increasingly irrelevant Shrek films, which devolved into exactly the type of feel-good fairy tale stories they originally savagely lampooned, Puss in Boots benefits from the freedom to define its own identity. Of course, it retains the trappings (after all, Puss inhabits a world with Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty and Little Boy Blue), but it doesn’t carry the same level of baggage that its parent series does. It’s not a vicious parody of Disney values, and in fact feels remarkably straight-forward. However, the simplicity of its approach is remarkably endearing, and means it’s easy to sit back and enjoy the ride. Puss in Boots is solidly entertaining family fair, arriving perfectly in time for the holidays.
Here, kitty kitty kitty...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Antonio Banderas, billy bob thornton, film, Humpty Dumpty, Jack & Jill, Lady Gaga, Movie, non-review review, Puss, Puss in Boots, review, salma hayek, San Ricardo Southern Leyte, shrek, Zach Galifianakis | 2 Comments »
Posted on November 28, 2011 by Darren
Pop quiz, hotshot. There’s a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do?
– Howard tells you everything you need to know
Speed is the quintessential nineties action movie. If you want to look at a movie that typifies what a nineties action film looked like, but does so with an incredible amount of skill (and a reasonable portion of wit), it’s hard to recommend a more obvious choice. It’s a movie that falls apart if you think about it too hard, but director Jan de Bont does an absolutely amazing job making sure that we’re never really looking beyond the next ridiculous plot twist or tension action set piece. More than earning its name, Speed is a movie that runs on enough raw adrenaline that it becomes as easy to overlook the movie’s flaws as it is to it seems to be ride a bus across a fifty-foot gap in a half-constructed bridge. And de Bont manages to make that look really easy.
Can I phone a friend on this "pop quiz"?
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: action films, dennis hopper, Filmmaking, gary oldman, Graham Yost, Howard Payne, jack, Keanu Reeves, metafiction, Movie, non-review review, review, sandra bullock, Speed, Speed (film), United States | 7 Comments »
Posted on November 24, 2011 by Darren
I think Jackie Brown suffers in comparison to the rest of Quentin Tarantino’s distinguished filmography. While Grindhouse: Deathproof divides film fanatics along “love it” or “hate it” lines, it seems the general critical consensus on Jackie Brown is that it’s simply “quite good.” I like the film, even if I don’t rank it as highly as most of his other work, and I wonder if the movie feels so strange because it’s probably the most “conventional”film that Tarantino has directed. While the dialogue and the character interactions help immediately identify the film as the product of Tarantino, it’s an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, and it feels like a reasonably conventional little crime thriller.
That's her name...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Aimee Graham, Bridget Fonda, Chris Tucker, film, Jackie, Jackie Brown, Movie, non-review review, Ordell, Pam Grier, quentin tarantino, review, robert deniro, Robert Forster, samuel l. jackson, tarantino | 3 Comments »
Posted on November 22, 2011 by Darren
I really liked Machete. It sounds strange from somebody who was relatively unimpressed with Robert Rodriguez’s contribution to Grindhouse, the lackluster b-movie throwback Planet Terror. I think that Machete works because it’s considerably more obvious in its humour, while still walking through a fairly conventional “exploitation” plot. Although the storyline and characters could easily have come from some dingy shot-on-video-camera b-movie, Rodriguez seems somewhat clearer in his parody here, as if he’s making an intentionally hilarious film, rather than merely trying to create the sense of an unintentionally hilarious film. I think it really works, because it’s everything a film like this should be: it’s gleefully silly, ridiculously violent, hilariously “relevent”, and presented in an insanely over-the-top manner.
Machete don't fold...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Danny Trejo, exploitation film, film, grindhouse, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, machete, Marshalls, Mexico, mexploitation, Michelle Rodriguez, Movie, non-review review, review, robert deniro, robert rodriguez, Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, steven segal, United States | 8 Comments »
Posted on November 21, 2011 by Darren
I kinda feel sorry for Superman II. As a film, it’s overshadowed by the enormous controversy over the firing of director Richard Donner. Donner, who directed the original film, had begun work on the follow-up, when he was dismissed by the producers – reportedly for resisting the “campy” direction that the Salkinds where trying to force on the film. Richard Lester (who worked with the Salkinds as producer on The Three Musketeers, The Fourth Musketeer and as an uncredited producer on the original Superman) stepped in to fill the vacant position, and was ultimately credited on the finished product. While the film works relatively well, it suffers from the simple fact that Lester is nowhere near the craftsman that Donner was.
You'll believe a man can make a woman forget his secret identity!
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: art, Brando, Christopher Nolan, Clark, clark kent, dark knight, Donner, Eiffel Tower, film, Filmmaking, jor-el, Lois, Lois Griffin, marlon brando, Movie, non-review review, paris, review, richard donner, Richard Lester, superman, superman ii, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace | 8 Comments »
Posted on November 18, 2011 by Darren
Catch Me If You Can is an enjoyable little film which feels like Spielberg indulging in some sixties nostalgia, while allowing Leonardo DiCaprio to scratch yet another name off his “greatest living directors” bingo card. It’s always impressive when a movie running for two-and-a-half hours just breezes by – some might suggest that such a film is “light”, and it’s a hard position to disagree with, but I think it marks a nice change of pace from the darker movies Spielberg was directing during the first decade of the new millennium. It’s not a classic, but it’s an enjoyable piece of cinema, crafted by talented people, that moves almost as fast as its lead character.
They should cheque better next time...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Adventures of Tintin, arts, christopher walken, Clint Eastwood, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, DiCaprio, film, Fleming, frank sinatra, J Edgar, John Williams, Leonardo diCaprio, martin sheen, Movie, non-review review: catch me if you can, review, spielberg, steven spielberg, tom hanks | 12 Comments »
Posted on November 18, 2011 by Darren
Twilight tends to generate a great deal of controversy on the internet, which is something I’ve never really understood. After all, all aspects of fandom – movies, television, comic books, video games – tend to suffer from a mainstream prejudice, so it seems strange that Twilight should attract such a harsh response from fans of other niche culture. In fact, I’d subscribe to the argument that Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part I is just like any other major franchise film, like The Expendables or Transformers III. The only major difference is that it’s aimed at the female demographic rather than a male one. Keep in mind this isn’t a defense (it has many of the same weaknesses as those two films), but rather an observation – it’s something I’ve always found strange.
To have and to hold...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Anna Kendrick, bella, breaking dawn, edward, Edward Cullen, expendables, film, Movie, non-review review, review, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, taylor lautner, Team Edward, team Jacob, The Twilight Saga, the twilight saga: breaking dawn, twilight, Twilight Saga, twilight: breaking dawn | 10 Comments »
Posted on November 17, 2011 by Darren
Clue is an interesting movie. It’s an obviously flawed one, but it’s also conducted with such impressive energy and a cheeky sense of fun that it’s quite easy to overlook some of the structural problem, and rather glaring plot holes. It’s an affectionate parody of those classic “whodunnit” mysteries, stories like Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, featuring a small cast trapped together, investigating a murder. Based on the game Clue (or Cluedo to us Europeans), it’s the first movie based on a boardgame, and I can’t help but feel that it’s still the best.
The usual suspects...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Board game, Clue, Cluedo, Colonel Mustard, Crime fiction, film, Game, House Un-American Activities Committee, List of Cluedo characters, Movie, New England, non-review review, review, tim curry, United States | Leave a comment »
Posted on November 16, 2011 by Darren
Anaconda is a B-movie. It’s not a homage to a B-movie, or a love letter to that type of film. It’s not a nostalgic throwback, or an attempt to capture some of the elements of those old cheesy productions. It actually is a B-movie. There’s no real attempt to execute the film in a manner that rises above those, or even captures that type of filmmaking at its best, it’s just a solid example of what a B-movie might look like, were it produced today. It’s hard to argue that Anaconda is a good film – and I’ll readily concede that it’s actively a badone – but there is some charm to be found it, if only from the way that all the hyper-trashy elements seem to come together in what appears to be a perfect storm of creature feature cheese.
I always had a crush on Jennifer Lopez...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Anaconda, Computer-generated imagery, Dick Dastardly, film, Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez, jon voight, Movie, non-review review, Owen Wilson, raiders of the lost ark, review | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 14, 2011 by Darren
Targets still feels quite a bit ahead of its time, which is quite something for a film intended to transition between the classic horror monster movies and the more sinister and grounded modern horrors. Indeed, Boris Karloff’s last starring role seems to prefigure a shift in the type of horror movies flooding the cinemas, years ahead of the more iconic and mundane “slasher” icons who succeeded Dracula and Frankenstein as the monsters at the matinée. Targets is an intriguing and remarkable little film, charmingly understanded and perhaps appealing for the lack of pomp it attempts to generate.
The horror!
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Béla Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Bryon Orlok, dracula, film, frankenstein, jack nicholson, Karloff, Martin Luther King, Movie, non-review review, Orlok, Peter Bogdanovich, review, Roger Corman, Targets, Terror, The Terror (film) | Leave a comment »
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