review | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Moonrise Kingdom

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Darren

I’ve always felt that Wes Anderson sees the world through the eyes of child. Events take on a surreal larger-than-life significance, characters are exaggerated, emotional interactions are somewhat simplistic, yet peppered with nuance and hidden depth. To be entirely honest, I’ve found this has a tendency to make Anderson’s adult characters difficult to relate to and his movies difficult to engage with. That’s why I think The Fantastic Mr. Fox worked so well, because it was a childish view of an adult work through the prism of a children’s story.

That’s also why, I think, Moonrise Kingdom works just as well as Anderson’s quirky foray into the world of stop motion animation. While many of Anderson’s films are tragedies about overgrown children living in the bodies of adults, Moonrise Kingdom is more keenly focused on how adults and children interact with one another – giving the movie a depth to complement Anderson’s unique stylistic vision, and heart to go with its cynical wit.

“Well, we know where we’re going…”

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Anderson, arts, bruce willis, fantastic mr. fox, Fantastic Mr. Fox (film), film, Fox, Khaki Scout, Moonrise Kingdom, Movie, New England, non-review review, review, Sam, Snoopy, stop-motion, Suzy, wes anderson | 9 Comments »

Non-Review Review: To Catch a Thief

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Darren

To Catch a Thief is unique among Hitchcock films. It’s the only Hitchcock film produced by Paramount to remain distributed by Paramount. The rest reverted to Hitchcock and are now distributed by Universal. More than that, however, the film feels remarkably “light” as measured against some of his other work. It feels almost like Cary Grant and Grace Kelly are just supporting players, with the French Riviera serving as the headlining star of the film. That not to dismiss To Catch a Thief entirely – it’s still a beautiful and well constructed piece of cinema from a master director, just one that feels a little shallow compared to his better work.

The short kiss goodnight…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alfred hitchcock, arts, Cary Grant, film, france, French Riviera, Grace Kelly, hitchcock, John Robie, Movie, Movies, non-review review, review, Robie, To Catch a Thief | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Aliens (Theatrical Cut)

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Prometheus this week, we’ll be taking a look at the other movies in the Alien franchise.

I think Aliens might be my favourite James Cameron movie. Of course, the guy has any number of iconic movies vying for that position – The Terminator and Terminator 2 both come to mind, for example – but I can’t help but admire how efficiently the director constructed his first big budget motion picture. Regardless of its place within an iconic science-fiction franchise, Aliens is practically a guidebook on how to effectively construct a movie, from writing the script to directing the action and absolutely everything in between. It’s hard to look at Aliens as anything less than a complete triumph, no matter which angle you examine the film from.

Queen bee…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alien, aliens, avatar, Banquette, bishop, Blu-ray Disc, Burke, Cameron, Christopher Nolan, David Giler, Ellen Ripley, film, hicks, james cameron, List of Alien characters, Marine, Michael Biehn, Movie, non-review review, review, ridley scott, Ripley, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, sigourney weaver, space, terminator, Terraforming, United States, United States Marines | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Falling Down

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Darren

Falling Down is something of a cult classic. It, along with Phone Booth, stands as proof that Joel Schumacher is actually a rather wonderful director, as much as his failures might occasional overshadow his accomplishments. Filmed in the midst of the Los Angeles riots, Falling Down manages to speak to a lot of the anger of urban living, as William “D-Fens” Foster takes out his frustration on an urban environment that has gone completely mad. Almost twenty years after it was originally released, Falling Down is still a potent little film.

The best D-FENS…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Athens, batman, batman forever, Falling Down, fascism, film, Foster, Foster care, Gang, Golden Dawn, Health, Home Office, Jacob Black, joel schumacher, los angeles, Movie, Nazism, Neo-Nazism, non-review review, politics, Prevention, r eview, Reports and Surveys, review, Road rage, Schumacher, Seattle, United States, Violence and Abuse | 8 Comments »

X-Men: Age of X (Review)

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Darren

With our month looking at Avengers comics officially over, we thought it might be fun to dig into that other iconic Marvel property, the X-Men. Join us for a month of X-Men related reviews and discussion.

Age of X is a weird little story. On the surface, it appears like an homage to the classic Age of Apocalypse storyline, an alternate universe yarn that swept through the X-Men titles back in the nineties. It odes, after all, portray a universe very different to the one that we recognise, and the one that we’re familiar with. However, on inspection, it seems like writer Mike Carey might have been attempting something just a bit bolder, a critical examination of the X-Men books, and how far they’ve moved since the nineties – an attempt to determine if the editorial policy that has reshaped their fictional world – is truly for the best.

X-over time…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Age of X, Carey, comic books, cyclops, fortress x, Jim McCann, magneto, marvel, marvel comics, meta-fiction, Mike Carey, no more mutants, review, Rogue, utopia, x-men, X-Men: Legacy | 5 Comments »

More Than You Embargoed For: Thoughts on Review Embargoes…

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Darren

I know I’m a bit late on this one, but I’ve been thinking a bit about movie review embargoes of late. For those unaware, embargoes are those restrictions on when a reviewer can publish a review. They’re normally enforced by studios, limiting the publication of reviews to within a one week window of the movie’s release. I’ve had the fortune over the past few months to be invited to screenings of The Avengers and Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists long before the window, and have held my review until it’s okay to publish. Still, I can’t help but feel a little uneasy at the prospect.

Nothing to get too Fury-ous about…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 21 Jump Street, Albert Nobbs, art, avengers, David Denby, embargo, film, film criticism, Film festival, hollywood, jameson dublin international film festival, Level playing field, Movie, New York Times, review, review embargo, screenwriter, United States | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Rope

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Darren

Rope occupies an interesting place in Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography. The director himself was less than fond of it, allegedly quite happy that it remained out of circulation for some time after its initial release. Jimmy Stewart has apparently been critical of his own performance in the film, although I think it’s a wonderful example of a beloved actor playing against type. In the years since, however, it has been somewhat re-evaluated. While most film fans would be hesitant to describe it as an unqualified success, it’s certainly a technically ambitious little film, and the tight script and set-up allow Hitchcock to indulge his knack for creating suspense.

I hope nobody choked with all those ten-minute takes…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alfredhitchcock, arts, Brandon, Cut the Rope, David, film, games, Health, hitchcock, James Stewart, John Dall, Movie, murder, Murder Mystery, Necklace, non-review review, OpenSky, People, Performing Arts, review, Rope, Skipping rope, tom hanks, White Shadow | 10 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Men in Black 3

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Darren

Men in Black 3 is a fine film. Like Men in Black and Men in Black 2, it’s a perfectly entertaining piece of popcorn entertainment if you’re willing to just go along with it. It’s not superb, it’s not exceptional, but it’s not bad either. It’s a decent movie. It manages to probably offer some better moments than the earlier two films, but these are averaged out by some painful deficiencies. You lose Tommy Lee Jones for most of the runtime, but you gain Josh Brolin. That’s a fairly reasonable trade, even if Brolin and Smith don’t share the same chemistry. You get the same wonderful production design, this time heightened by a sixties setting, but a plot that threatens to evaporate if you think about it too hard and any number of developments that are far too easy to predict. Nothing is truly fantastic, but nothing is exceptionally terrible. It just sort of is.

Putting the star in 69…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Agent J, Agent K, Alice Eve, arts, Barry Sonnenfeld, Boris, film, jemaine clement, Jones, josh brolin, Men In Black, Men in Black III, Movie, non-review review, People, review, Smith, tommy lee jones, will smith | Leave a comment »

X-Men: Schism (Review)

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Darren

X-Men: Schism is a game-changer. It’s an attempt to realign Marvel’s X-Men line, a series of books that have faltered in recent years. After all, events like Messiah Complex and Second Coming couldn’t propel the line back to prominence, so Schism feels like a manifesto. Collecting the main series written by Jason Aaron, and the X-Men: Regenesis one-shot written by Kieron Gillen, it represents the most recent attempt to bring the some sense of life and purpose back to the X-Men books, which have been increasingly overshadowed by Marvel’s Avengers publishing line. And, to be frank, I can’t help but think that Schism works pretty well as an attempt to brush away the recent past and carve out a new and exciting future.

The hand of fate…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: blue, cyclops, generation hope, gold, grant morrison, Jason Aaron, Kieron Gillen, marvel, marvel comics, matt fraction, review, Schism, schism review, uncanny x-men, wolverine, wolverine and the x-men, x-men, x-men: regenesis, x-men: schism | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Critters 3

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Darren

I have a confession to make. I have never seen a Critters film before. They were always sitting there on the lower shelves of the horror section in the shop where I used to rent DVDs, but I just never picked one up. I can’t quite explain why – that sort of trashy horror-comedy would probably have seemed right up my street, but I guess I was probably more fascinated with the more iconic horror monsters and menaces. Anyway, my better half has always had a bit of affection for Leonardo DiCaprio, and when we discovered that his first big screen role was as a kid in Critters 3, I suggested that we could watch both watch it. And, I’m surprised to admit, it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be.