Movies | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Darren

“Everything’s going to change now, isn’t it?”

– Hermoine, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Truth be told, before I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was easily my favourite instalment of the series. It’s the perfect balance between the lighter start of the series and the much darker end of it, straddling the two distinct tones with ease, and managing to walk the line between it’s under-plotted predecessors and over-plotted successors. It’s still not quite perfect, but it genuinely feels like things are changing and world is lot more vast than the earlier films had led us to believe.

The series is finally firing on all cylinders...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alan rickman, Alfonso Cuarón, films, Half-Blood Prince, harry potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, HarryPotter, Hogwarts, JK Rowling, Mike Newell, Movies, non-review review, Order of the Phoenix (organisation), review | Leave a comment »

Cinematic Nostalgia: Old Films on the Big Screen…

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Darren

Jameson, the wonderful people behind the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival and the Jameson Cult Film Club are planning on launching their own film blog this week. It’ll be well worth a look and, based on their passion for good cinema, it’s sure to be wonderful. Anyway, as part of the launch, I was delighted to be invited along to a screening of Chinatown with a few other Irish film bloggers. Hosted in a lovely little cinema, I have to admit that there was just something incredible about watching a classic film I had only ever seen on television projected on to a big screen like (I suppose) it had always been intended to be shown. Given how much any love affair with cinema draws on classics from eras long gone, I have to admit that I was genuinely blown away by the chance to see such a classic film on such a big screen.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 3-D film, arts, Batman in film, cinema, Citizen Kane, classic films, film, jameson dublin international film festival, Matrix Reloaded, Movie, Movies, nostalgia, Tingler | 14 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Cars 2

Posted on July 17, 2011 by Darren

Cars 2 is a Pixar film that runs on an engine, rather than on heart. Technically, it’s magnificent. It’s well put together, features a winning cast, a lot of quite wonderful jokes and absolutely stunning action movies. However, the movie fails to make even the most basic of emotional connections. We’re always watching a bunch of cool cars doing cool car stuff, but we never feel good or bad about it. Even when a handful of cars meet tragic ends over the course of the movie, we never feel bad about it – we don’t really care about them, so we’re never concerned at the dangers they face. It’s a shame, because it’s a stunningly beautiful piece of animation, it’s just missing that wonderful soul that Pixar seems to install with its movies as standard.

Lightning, cameras, action!

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: cars, Cars 2, films, finding nemo, Lightning McQueen, Mater, Michael Caine, Movies, non-review review, Paul Newman, pixar, review, Tow Mater | 7 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Platoon

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Darren

I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. The enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. As I’m sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called “possession of my soul.” There are times since, I’ve felt like a child, born of those two fathers.

– ~~Oliver Stone~~ Charlie Taylor meditates on Vietnam

I honestly think that Platoon might be my favourite war film ever made. It’s almost certainly my favourite Vietnam film ever made, despite my considerable respect for Apocalypse Now. However, though Stone’s classic is steeped in allegory and metaphor (see the above quote), I think that it works better as a personal account of the conflict, rather than Coppola’s attempt to capture the surreal nature of the war on celluloid. Stone actually served a tour over there, and I think that there’s a lot of his own personal perspective poured into the film, which makes it feel like quite a raw and powerful piece of cinema.

War is dirty business...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Charles Taylor, films, history, Jesus, Jesus Christ, military, Movies, non-review review, oliver stone, Platoon, review, tom berenger, vietnam, Vietnam War, willem dafoe | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Fanboys

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Darren

Fanboys is a film that is borderline mediocre, but the tragedy is that it actually could have been really good. It’s quite strange, because the movie seems intent to straddle two audiences – aiming at once for both cult geek cred and mainstream appeal. Of course, the paradox of such an approach is that it frequently ends up alienating both core groups. The film is arguably too deeply entrenched in geek culture to ever find a large mainstream audience, but it’s also far too bland, safe and stereotypical for a geek audience. So it clearly hopes to please everyone, but winds up satisfying no one. Which is a shame, because it seems like it’s actually having a great deal of fun.

Indulge your Dark Side...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Avery Brooks, chris pine, Darth Maul, Epix, fanboys, fans, film, Geek, geekdom, geeks, Harry Knowles, Harvey Weinstein, james t. kirk, Movies, non-review review, Ray Park, review, Scott Bakula, star trek, William Shatner | Leave a comment »

A Bluffer’s Guide to the Dark Knight Rises Rumours…

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Darren

This week has been a bit of an early Christmas for movie geeks such as myself, with Warner Brothers unveiling both the teaser poster and the teaser trailer to The Dark Knight Rises, the much-anticipated closing chapter to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. When we know a bit more later in the year, I’ll dig into the movie in a bit more depth, but it occurred to me that a lot of fans on-line are throwing out concepts and references that might seem a bit foreign to the uninitiated. I can’t imagine how strange it must be for a non-comic-book-fan to hear titles like Knightfall or “Lazarus Pits” thrown into casual conversation. So I’ve put together a bluffer’s guide to all the speculation and rumours, so that you can hopefully understand a bit more of what nerdy geeks like myself are talking about when we casually reference stuff like “I will break you!” It should be stressed that all these are 100% rumour, and not meant to reflect the film, but to help understand geeky references in discussions about the film. Sort of like a handy guide to the “offside rule”in soccer or such.

Welcome to underground comcis culture...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bane, batman, Batman in film, Batman: Knightfall, bluffer's guide, bluffing, bruce wayne, Christopher Nolan, film, film rumours, Knightfall, lex luthor, liam neeson, movie rumours, Movies, ra's al ghul, rumours, Talia Al Ghul, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, the dark knight rises rumours, United States | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Darren

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II is probably the strongest entry in the film series, and offers a fitting code to the saga of the famous boy wizard. Sleaker, leaner and meaner than most of its predecessors, I can actually understand – artistically – why Warners opted to split the final book into two distinct chapters. In many ways, the previous instalment (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I) felt like another year with the Hogwarts crowd, while the finale here represents an epilogue to the entire series. Threads hinted at and developed since the first film are all tied up here, and – isolated from a lot of the soap opera of early episodes – the last in the series provides some stunning closure.

The wiz kid returns...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adaptation, alan rickman, daniel radcliffe, deathly hallows, Emma Watson, film, harry potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, harry potter and the deathly hallows: part 2, harry potter and the deathly hallows: part ii, Hogwarts, Maggie Smith, Movies, non-review review, ralph fiennes, review, Rupert Grint, sequel, the deathly hallows, Voldemort, wizards | 8 Comments »

Harry Pottering On: Research & Reviews…

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Darren

This evening, I will be lucky enough to attend a screening of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part II, and have a chance to get my review on-line. However, I must concede that I am not a Harry Potter fanatic. I haven’t read the books. I’ve seen the films, enjoyed the majority for what they are, only found one to be an exercise in tedium, and have a genuine respect for what they’ve managed to accomplish in bringing to life a fairly iconic series of books in a manner that can please both the hardcore fans and the casual movie-goer. However, as I brace myself to attend the screening tonight, I wonder what a film critic owes their subject matter in terms of research. Do I owe the people who made the film, and – possibly – the fans that are going to see it, enough to dig into as much of the back ground as possible before the cinema lights go down?

Witch approach should I adopt?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, critics, Emma Watson, film, film criticism, film critics, film research, film reviews, films, harry potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling, Movie, Movies, research, review, reviews | 2 Comments »

The Dark Knight Rises Teaser Poster Has Arrived…

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Darren

… and it is awesome. It’s done in that rather minimalistic approach as the early Dark Knight posters.

And we get a teaser this week. I am really excited, and I hope it’s half as effective as the teasers for Batman Begins or The Dark Knight, both of which were perfect examples of trailers that spurred interest and intrigue without giving anything away.

Click to enlarge...

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bane, batman, batman begins, Batman in film, Christopher Nolan, dark knight, films, harry potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film), Movies, Teaser trailer, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, the dark knight rises poster, the dark knight rises teaser, the dark knight rises teaser poster, Warner Bros | 6 Comments »

Ah Sure, It’s Grand: Random Thoughts on Critical Reception to Irish Films…

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Darren

It’s always a bit interesting when a major and well-received Irish film is released, if only because it typically involves a fairly large divorce between the critical and audience reception to these films. It has been suggested that film critics are too quick to shower Irish films with praise they don’t deserve, out of some misplaced sense of patriotism. As the Trinity Film Review succinctly sums up:

An overrated Irish film is not hard to find. Our tendency towards the inflated evaluation of domestic filmmaking is a self-perpetuating one, leaving audiences indifferent towards the hyperbole-gavaged, entry-level film geese trotted out by our native industry, and filmmakers and critics alike complacent in the immutable, self-congratulatory expository routine the utter nakedness of which nobody seems inclined to comment on.

I have to admit, I’ve seen this in effect quite a few times, and it really bugs me – if only because it makes it harder to spot when a realgem of a film comes along. I honestly don’t think that this sort of attitude helps anyone.