Movies | the m0vie blog

Holding Out For an Anti-Hero: The Rise of the Morally Ambiguous Protagonist…

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Darren

Sure, comedies have a long history of featuring genuinely unlikable characters as leads, but I think the last number of years have seen an explosion in the number of morally ambiguous (and sometimes downright villainous) protagonists, both on the big and small screens. Of course, the entire film noir movement was based upon the idea of a compromised hero, in recent times we’ve found ourselves increasingly cheering for the bad guy.

A serial charmer...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, Boardwalk Empire, Charles Bronson, Deadwood, hbo, jack bauer, Magnum P.I, miami vice, Movies, Shield, Showtime, the sopranos, villain | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Evil Dead II – Dead by Dawn

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Darren

This is a post as part of “Raimi-fest”, the event being organised by the always wonderful Bryce over at Things That Don’t Suck.

I don’t think there’s ever been a movie quite like Evil Dead II. Although you could argue that Raimi’s unique stylings are evident in the original Evil Dead, they don’t really come into their own in quite the same way that they would for the sequel. Although the movie is obviously indebted to any number of sources, the film has a crazy energy all of its own. It rockets along at such speed that the audience is caught a little off guard. It’s refreshing and more than a little zesty, which are certainly among the film’s charms.

Has Ash crossed the wrong monsters?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Ash Williams, bruce campbell, comedy, evil dead, Evil Dead II, films, horror, Horror film, looney tunes, Movies, Necronomicon, non-review review, review, sam raimi, slapstick comedy, spider man | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Source Code

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Darren

A special thanks to the guys over at movies.ie for sneaking us into an advanced preview screening.

Duncan Jones really grabbed our attention with Moon, one of the most boldly original films of the last decade. However, it’s often the second film of a promising young director that is the most fascinating to watch, as the weight of expectation is measured against a (typically) larger budget and profile. Too many young talents fizzle out or stumble at the second hurdle. I’m glad to report that Jones manages to make it safely across. While Source Code might lack the power of his debut, it’s still a fascinating little science-fiction thriller, one I’m still thinking of hours after I left the screening. And that is certainly a mark of quality.

Has Colter gone off the rails?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Beleaguered Castle, duncan jones, films, Groundhog Day, Jake Gyllenhaal, moon, Movies, non-review review, philosophy, reality, review, sci-fi, science fiction, source code, source code (film), the source code, time travel, war on terror | 6 Comments »

Critics Just Wanna Have Fun: Why I Dislike the “They Don’t Get It” Argument…

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Darren

I like to think I am open minded. Just a few weeks ago, I published an article defending big budget blockbusters from their detractors. However, I find myself growing frequently frustrated when it comes to fans using the old “critics don’t like fun” argument to defend a given movie from any sort of meaningful debate and criticism. It happens a few times a year, most spectacularly with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen back in 2009, but also this year with Sucker Punch. The film has received a critical lambasting, but fans are always quick to rush to the internet to critique the critics, claiming things like “they don’t get it” and “they don’t understand” or nonsense like that.

And, you know what? That’s just plain wrong.

Movie for suckers?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Abbie Cornish, armond white, criticism, critics, dark knight, discussion, films, get it, it, Jena Malone, King's Speech, Last Airbender, Movies, reviewers, Shutter Island, Sucker Punch, they just don't get it, watchmen, zack snyder | 14 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Evil Dead

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Darren

This is a post as part of “Raimi-fest”, the event being organised by the always wonderful Bryce over at Things That Don’t Suck.

Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead is actually a pretty decent addition to the zero-budget teens-go-up-to-the-woods-today-and-are-sure-of-a-big-surprise subgenre. It’s a trashy horror which demonstrates a deeper affinity for the genre than a lot of other “video nasty” slasher films are prone to. However, while the film displays clear hints of the director’s developing skill, it still feels just a little bit too much like another random exploitation “schlock and shock” film.

Axe any questions you might have...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Ash Williams, bruce campbell, Bryce, england, evil dead, film, films, horror, Horror film, Mary Whitehouse, Movies, non-review review, review, sam raimi, schlock, shining, spider man, video nasty, wes craven | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Cleopatra

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Darren

The big budget Cleopatra is renowned as something of a massive contradiction. It was panned mercilessly by critics, and yet picked up four Academy Awards (and five more nominations). It was the most financially successful movie of the year, and yet still turned a fairly substantial loss. It’s one of the last great Hollywood epics, and it almost killed Twentieth Century Fox. So there’s something strangely fitting about the final line, in which it was suggested that the movie’s subject was “the last of so many noble rulers.” In many ways, the film was the last of its kind, but perhaps the most lavish. Perhaps history has been kinder to the production than its initial release was, but it’s still a very flawed film.

I can see Cleo now...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Academy Award, blockbuster, Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor, epic, film, historical epic, Julius Caesar, Marc Anthony, Mark Antony, Movie, Movies, non-review review, review, Rex Harrison, rome, studio system | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Spider-Man II

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Darren

This is a post as part of “Raimi-fest”, the event being organised by the always wonderful Bryce over at Things That Don’t Suck.

Aside from Nolan’s two superb Batman movies, Spider-Man II was the only other comic book superhero movie to make my top fifty films of the last decade. There’s a reason for that. Part of it is the fact that the movie helped define what the second film in a superhero franchise should really look like, but a larger part of it is that this film represents the moment at which Sam Raimi seemed most at home with his beloved central character – and I think that genuine enthusiasm on the part of the director really shines through over the course of the film.

I reckon Spider-Man polls highly among superhero fans...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Andrew Garfield, arts, Aunt May, bruce campbell, bryan singer, Comics, films, j.k. simmons, Movies, non-review review, peter parker, Raimi, review, sam raimi, spider man, stan lee, Steve Ditko | 6 Comments »

Tell Them I’m Coming: The Power of a Tagline…

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Darren

I have a confession to make. I have never seen The Limey. It may seem like I’m overreacting with that shameful confession, being only one of millions of film fans who have somehow stumbled through life without ever seeing that particular relatively unimportant Steven Soderbergh film, but let me put this in context. A good few years ago, I was browsing the video store and I stumbled across the relatively bland cover to the film, which smacks of an old-school exploitation vibe. On it, a very old (yet nevertheless bad ass) Terence Stamp is taking a moment out of what seems to be some very important business to have a quick sly cigarette (very much a politically correct faux pas these days). Anyway, it wasn’t that image which struck me of itself. It was the tagline. “Tell them I’m coming,” Stamp’s voice seemed to read the promo aloud to me. And, strangely, despite the fact I left the videostore without it, that tagline has stayed with me.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Bowfinger, DVD, film, Limey, los angeles, Movies, Steven Soderbergh, taglin, taglines, tell them i'm coming, Terence Stamp, the limey, yes man | 7 Comments »

Meme of the Moment: Desert Island CD’s

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Darren

This blog post is part of “Desert Island CD’s”, a blogging event being hosted by those gents over at Anomalous Material as a sort of a spiritual successor to last year’s “Desert Island DVD’s”. Check out the link above for everybody else’s list.

Movie soundtracks are a strange beast. They say that memory is most strongly associated with the sense of smell, but – since I guess we can’t smell movies outside of Hans Laube’s somewhat misguided “Smell-O-Vision” – I am never less than amazed at the capacity of a piece of music to take me back to a film. Whether it’s a piece of an orchestra score, a pop song featured in the background, an original composition for the film or even a piece linked to a particular trailer, film music has a strong tie to my memory. To show you that I am not kidding, thanks to the following truly corny international trailer, I can’t hear The Sun Always Shines on TV without thinking of Slumdog Millionaire. You may think I’m bluffing, but skip to about a minute into it.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, clubbed to death, Compact Disc, desert island, Ennio Morricone, god moving over the face of the water, Hello Zepp, moby, Movies, music, pearl harbour sucked, scores, slumdog millionaire, soundtracks, take my breath away, team america, top gun | 20 Comments »

Back to Begins: Is Nolan Bringing The Dark Knight Rises a Full Circle?

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Darren

As The Dark Knight Rises draws closer and closer to filming, the rumours are just going to grow more and more intense. The latest rumour de jour (succeeding in a long line of debunked suggestions like the Riddler or Robin Williams as Hugo Strange) suggests that the League of Shadows will return to take on the Dark Knight in the final part of the trilogy, led by the daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul and her lover Bane. I was initially skeptical of the rumours, perhaps because they so neatly dove-tail back into the first film of the trilogy, Batman Begins.