Posted on November 12, 2010 by Darren
I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by revealing there’s a twist in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. In fact, the only shocking twist in a Shyamalan film would be if there was no twist. I have to admit that even I was a little surprised when I guessed the twist about twenty minutes into this film. And I was sadly disappointed that there really wasn’t anything else on screen to hold my interest.
Village people...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bryce Dallas Howard, films, Haley Joel Osment, jesse eisenberg, Joaquin Phoenix, M. Night Shyamalan, metaphor, Mnightshyamalan, Movies, non-review review, politics, review, shyamalan, sigourney weaver, Sixth Sense, subtext, the twist, the village, twist endings, Village, william hurt | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 11, 2010 by Darren
Richard Nixon introduced the phrase “the silent majority” into the popular lexicon, referring to those people who weren’t out protesting or stirring up a storm, but quietly and strongly sanctioning his actions. Since then the term has become almost synonymous with “middle America” or the “the big red middle”, the clear indication that liberalism and activism were traditionally associated with the coasts of the country – specifically concentrated around Washington, New York and California. Whenever loud and vocal protests arise in these regions, expect the more conservative politicians to speak about the silent majority of decent middle-class folks in “flyover country” who don’t make big deals of things and vote with their feet. These are the people, these politicians will tell you, who save their public political expressions for the election day. And so, it would seem, this central part of the country has voted on The Social Network. And silence was certainly there in spades.
The Silent Majority turned down The Social Network's Friend Request...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: box office, cinema, CinemaScore, classism, coastal america, david fincher, entertainment, film, films, gi joe, middle america, Movies, politics, richard nixon, rotten tomatoes, Social Network, United States | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 8, 2010 by Darren
The Guardian once made a point that what distinguishes British writers from their American counterparts is that they simply refuse to ascribe to simplicity would could be blamed on malice:
The conspiracy theory has become an off-the-peg solution for writing about politics in Britain – to the detriment of writing, politics and Britain. If The Wire had been made here, its hero McNulty would have discovered that Baltimore’s problems were not the result of a shortsighted political culture, or the weakness of human nature, but were the fault of one property developer in a polo-neck.
It’s an astute observation, rendering The Ghost a very British reflection on the most turbulent legacy of a recent Prime Minister.
How will Lang keep his spirits up?
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adrian lang, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, ewan mcgregor, film, Ghost Writer, hokey, Movie, non-review review, pierce brosnan, politics, Prime Minister, review, Robert Harris, roman polanski, the ghost, the ghost writer, tony blair | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 7, 2010 by Darren
The third part of Peter Morgan and Michael Sheen’s superb “Tony Blair trilogy” seems perfectly timed. In fact, being honest, I’m surprised that HBO couldn’t muster up enough enthusiasm for a small-scale cinematic release, what with Blair’s political memoir A Journey doing the rounds at the moment (I’m working my way through it and it’s probably the best political memoir I’ve read since Churchill). Blair is easily one of the most fascinating political leaders of the last few decades, and Morgan does well to juxtapose him against perhaps his greatest political influence: Bill Clinton. Still, all that being said, and with this reportedly the final part of the trilogy, it might have been best to focuse on his relationship with the leader who most strongly defined his legacy. However, Morgan has admitted time and time again that he simply didn’t want to write Bush. While I’m happy with what we got, it doesn’t exactly feel like a fitting coda.
Bro's before interns accusing you of gross impropriety...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: bbc, bill clinton, Dennis Quaid, films, hbo, hope davis, michael sheen, Movie, non-review review, peter morgan, politics, Queen, review, Special Relationship, the queen, the special relationship, tony blair | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 31, 2010 by Darren
The Siege has the benefit of becoming a lot more relevent in the past couple of years. Exploring the aftermath of a series of terrorist atrocities on New York City by Islamic extremists, the film isn’t exact a subtle exploration of the relationship between liberty and security – instead preferring to offer two-dimensional strawmen instead of characters or legitimate viewpoints. Still, despite its heavy-handedness, it does have some interesting insights into the world after it has been shaken to its core.
Washington under Siege...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: america, annette benning, bruce willis, denzel washington, extremism, film, islam extremism, Movie, non-review review, politics, review, september 11th, subtext, terrorism, the siege | Leave a comment »
Posted on August 24, 2010 by Darren
A Dream Play is regarded as one of the defining moments of surrealism on stage. It’s not so much a play as wide variety of clashing ideas and scenarios, which overlap and bleed into each other as if reality itself is bleeding. The net effect quite wonderfully evokes the idea that the audience is somewhere very strange indeed – where characters and archetypes seem just on the verge of making sense before morphing and merging into something new and strange yet strangely familiar. The National Youth Theatre have staged a production at the Peacock Theatre, working off the version of the play “edited” by Caryl Churchill. I put “edited” in inverted commas because – despite not having an annotated version – I can offer a pretty confident guess as to which parts of the play came from her more modern (and vastly less subtle) perspective.
A "dream" cast...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: a dream play, abbey theatre, caryl churchill, dream play, dublin, feminism, jimmy fay, national youth theatre, peacock, peacock theatre, politics, review, surreal, surrealism, theatre review | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 26, 2010 by Darren
I imagine that Robert Rodriguez was bracing himself for controversy over his new film Machete. Given the uproar that the use of foul language in Kick-Ass caused, I think it’s safe to say that Rodriguez’s retro “mexploitation” film was just asking for trouble when it came out. I anticipated a lot of politically correct discussions about the film’s premise, and potentially some discussions of negative stereotypes it might evoke. However, I certainly could not have suspected that it would provoke some sort of “race war”.
Knife to see you...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arizona, exploitation, films, immigration, machete, mexploitation, Movies, politics, pressure, racism, robert rodriguez | 17 Comments »
Posted on March 4, 2010 by Darren
I got to see the Irish premiere of Alice in Wonderland at the weekend, thanks to boards.ie and the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, and afterwards there was a Q & A session with Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall. Michael Sheen casually remarked that we’d be seeing the last of Peter Morgan’s “Blair trilogy”, The Special Relationship, hitting screens in about mid-July-ish. It’s been on my must-see list for a while – and the Internet Movie Database had a release date in 2011 last time I checked – but I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised at this particular companion in the tradition “Tony Blair and x” double act format. The Deal gave us Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The Queen gave us Tony Blair and… well, take a guess. The Special Relationship gives us Tony Blair and a US President. Which one? Dennis Quaid (yes, Dennis Quaid) as Bill Clinton. Yep, that’s not the US President I was thinking of either.
The "Special" Relationship... It even sounds like a bro-mance...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bill clinton, biography, cinema, film, george w. bush, Movies, peter morgan, politics, the deal, the queen, the special relationship, tony blair | Leave a comment »
Posted on November 6, 2009 by Darren
We caught V last night on TV3. I’m still disappointed no high definition channel is offering it – though, judging by the special effects quality, we weren’t missing much. We’re all fairly undecided on the show, which is a fairly solid reissue of a cult classic, rather than an attempt at a redesign. Don’t expect anything as smart or insightful as Battlestar Galactica and you should be relatively pleased. I think we’ll give this at least a season pass, and then review after that. Anyway, it was hard to watch the remake without the obvious themes playing in my head. Is V a criticism of what the media have dubbed Obama-mania?
The New Republicans?
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: aliens, america, barrack obama, change, discussion, hope, metaphor, obama, parallel, politics, Television, universal healthcare, us, v | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 16, 2009 by Darren
We don’t really do chat shows in this part of the world. Well, that’s a lie. We don’t do them well. And when we do do them, they are Prime Time shows like The Late, Late Show and are more often than not cheap imitations of chatshows from the States – we’re looking at you, Tubridy Tonight. In recent years we’ve tried the morning and afternoon chatshows and they haven’t really caught on – there’s a crisis at the RTE Afternoon Show even at the moment. In the States it’s different. Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful person on television. She saved Whitney Heuston. She makes or breaks best selling novels. Oprah is powerful. So the rumours that Oprah’s time as queen of the afternoon come as a bit of a surprise to me. As do many of the suggested reasons…
O, my god!
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Filed under: Television | Tagged: afternoon television, chatshows, oprah, oprah winfrey, politics, ratings, Television, the oprah winfrey show | 1 Comment »
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