Posted on October 18, 2011 by Darren
Get Carter still makes a very unsettling viewing experience, one that feels no more comfortable for the fact that it has been forty years since the film was originally released. The fact that the film’s grim and perverted vision of modern Britain has been imitated countless times doesn’t diminish its impact. On one level, Get Carter is a very British exploitation film, but it’s also a fairly powerful look at the urban underworld festering in surroundings far too familiar.
All washed up?
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Carter, Cinema of the United Kingdom, film, Get Carter, Jack Carter, Jimmy Carter, London, Michael Caine, Mike Hodge, Mike Hodges, Movie, Newcastle, non-review review, pornography, review, Ted Lewis | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 7, 2011 by Darren
Cyrus is a film that it’s hard to work up passion about in either direction. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, to be entirely honest – I don’t actively dislike it or anything like that. It’s just an honest reflection on this attempt to merge the indie “mumblecore” sensibilities with more conventional mainstream movie-making. It’s funny in places, and features a great cast, but it ultimately feels far too self-assured, and more like it’s comfortable with its indie-movie clichés, rather than trying to tell its own story.
Family dysFUNction...
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Filed under: Television | Tagged: comedy, cyrus, film, John, john c. reilly, jonah hill, Marisa Tomei, Molly, Movie, non-review review, review, Step Brothers (film) | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 4, 2011 by Darren
Snake Eyes could have been a much better movie than it ultimately turned out be. Brian De Palma can be a frustratingly uneven filmmaker, but the basic premise of the movie isn’t sort of promise. A murder mystery and conspiracy thriller in a crowded auditorium, with the investigating officer a corrupt cop? That’s a fairly interesting hook right there, even before you add Nicolas Cage and Gary Sinise to the mix. Unfortunately, the movie never seems entirely sure what it wants to be, ultimately serving as a random mish-mash of different elements that never add up to a conclusive whole.
In the Nic of time...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Brian De Palma, Cage, Conspiracy fiction, De Palma, film, Gary Sinise, Movie, nicolas cage, non-review review, review, Snake Eyes | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 16, 2011 by Darren
I really do have a great deal of affection for Run Lola Run, as a highly energetic and stylishly executed piece of cinema. It’s hard to think of a movie that can match the sheer intensity of the assault that the opening few moments make upon your senses, as the images flash across the screen, the heavy dance soundtrack kicks to life, and the camera dances and cuts like there’s no tomorrow. It’s a shame that the movie can’t really maintain that wonderful pace for the rest of its runtime, but perhaps it’s too much to ask for an eighty-minute sprint.
Betting it all on red...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, film, Filmmaking, games, Movie, Movies, non-review review, review, Run Lola Run, Sepp Herberger, Tom Tykwer | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 15, 2011 by Darren
I’m honestly not quite sure what to make of Extract. Ironically for a movie about a factor producing flavour additives, the movie seems lack a flavour of its own. Is Mike Judge’s effort a quirky and eccentric anything-goes laugh-out-loud fest, or is it a more conventional cookie-cutter comedy? The film seems to fluctuate between the two extremes, at times playing incredible safe and yet occasionally swinging for the fences, adding to a vaguely disjointed feeling to the whole thing.
Meeting of the bored...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: ben affleck, Clifton Collins Jr, DavidKoechner, Extract, film, j.k. simmons, jason bateman, Kristen Wiig, Mike Judge, mila kunis, Movie, non-review review, review | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 13, 2011 by Darren
Buried is a great high-concept thriller, with one hell of a hook and a fascinating premise. Basically the story of kidnap victim Paul Conroy, who is kidnapped by “insurgents” (or “criminals” or “terrorists”, depending on who you ask) and buried alive in Iraq. With only a limited source of light, and even less time, the truck driver is given mere hours to come up with a ridiculously large ransom or he’ll be left in the ground to rot forever.
It's a dirty job...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: buried, colin farrell, film, iraq, monty python, Movie, non-review review, Paul Conroy, review, ryan reynolds, Truck driver | 6 Comments »
Posted on September 7, 2011 by Darren
I’m going to be honest. I like B-movies. I have a soft-spot for a nice cheesy bit of entertainment that doesn’t demand to be taken seriously, and I can forgive a movie some bad acting or dodgy special effects, if the core ingredients are at least marginally interesting. Hell, I actually honestly enjoyed Event Horizon, something not too many other people will confess to. However, watching Supernova, a surprisingly lame rip-off that comes from a handful of directors (including Francis Ford Coppola), I found myself struggling to find anything to remotely enjoy. Instead, I spent most of its relatively short runtime counting down the seconds until it was over.
Guess which one of these gives the least mechanical performance...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, film, francis ford coppola, James Spader, Movie, non-review review, Peter Facinelli, review, Special effect, Supernova, Tom & Jerry, White dwarf | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 2, 2011 by Darren
Total Recall, to quote the lead character, whoever or whatever he may actually be, might just be “the best mind%&@! yet.”
"Dammit Cohagen, give these people some air!"
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Arnold Schwarzenegger, film, Len Wiseman, mars, michael ironside, Movie, non-review review, Paul Verhoeven, Philip K. Dick, review, ridley scott, Ronny Cox, Sharon Stone, total recall | 4 Comments »
Posted on September 1, 2011 by Darren
We’ve been digital now for about five years. I have to admit, as much as I might have admired the scavenger sensibility that standard ten-channel Irish television might have taught me, I find it hard to imagine what it must have been like. It’s like the way I can’t imagine a world without easy-to-carry mobile phones, even though I lived in it for quite a while, or I can’t remember what the world was like without access to the information super-highway (though I do remember when we used to use dial-up internet… oh the pain). Digital television is a wonderful invention, and one that I truly treasure. It’s been heard so often that it’s become something of a truism to remark that we get 999 channels, but there’s never anything to watch… but I think that people who feel like that simply aren’t trying hard enough.
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Filed under: Television | Tagged: art, digital, digital television, DVD, film, films, information age, Jay Switzer, Koyaanisqatsi, List of movie television channels, Movie, short cuts, sky | 2 Comments »
Posted on August 31, 2011 by Darren
A special thanks to the guys over at movies.ie for sneaking us into an advanced preview screening.
Being charitable, Kill List is a complete mess of a film. It has a decent concept, and a solid middle section. However, these are surrounded by an incredibly boring opening half-hour and a monumentally stupid and non-sensical ending. It’s a shame, because one gets the sense that there’s a very clever, very entertaining movie to be found if one can dig deep enough, but it’s very hard to like a film that is so decidedly uneven and feels like an especially random video nasty.
Not exactly light subject matter...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Ben Wheatley, Contract killing, film, Hit List (film), Hit List (John Keller Mysteries), Hitman, Kill list, Michael Smiley, Movie, non-review review, review, United States | 3 Comments »
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