review | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Never Let Me Go

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Darren

Never Let Me Go is a mess of a film. Adapted from the highly-praised novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro (who also wrote the novel that inspired The Remains of the Day), the movie is never really sure what it is talking about, or how it’s talking about it, or even what the point of it all is. There are two superb performances at the middle of the movie, but there’s not nearly enough constructed around them to really make it interesting. Director Mark Romanek cannot decide whether he’s telling a conventional love story in an unconventional setting (with the clear moral that “there’s never enough time”) or if he’s exploring the issue of bio-ethics through the prism of human nature. Ultimately, the film tries to both at the same time, which becomes impossible with Romanek’s cold and efficient direction, which left me feeling quite unsatisfied.

Stumbling out of the gate...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Hailsham, Kazuo Ishiguro, M. Night Shyamalan, Mark Romanek, michael bay, never let me go, non-review review, Remains of the Day, review, Romanek, Sex & The City | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Blacula

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Darren

You shall pay, black prince. I shall place a curse of suffering on you that will doom you to a living hell. I curse you with my name. You shall be… Blacula!

– racist!Dracula

It’s hard to make sense of Blacula. On one hand, it’s an interesting attempt to update gothic horror stereotypes for a modern audience, translating the horrors of vampirism skilfully from foreign countryside to an urban environment. On the other hand, it’s an uneven mess of a film, with plot holes so large that Blacula doesn’t need to turn into a bat to fly through them. It’s an interesting experiment, and one successful enough to spawn a sequel in Scream Blacula Scream! and to inspire films like Blackenstein, even if some fascinating concepts don’t necessarily add up to a fascinating whole.

A role he can sink his teeth into?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Blackenstein, Blacula, Bram Stoker, dracula, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, film, Marshall, Movie, non-review review review, review, vampire, William Marshall | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: War Horse

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Darren

War Horse is a fairly solid prestige picture. Spielberg is on fine form, reminding viewers of just how he became an audience favourite. He displays a warm confidence with the material, as if getting comfortable once again with this sort of crowd-pleasing fare. The film has some fairly significant flaws, stemming mostly from a disjointed and disorganised screenplay, but it’s the director’s charm that manages to carry the film through. Ironically, for a film focusing on an equine, it feels like one of the most warmly human films that Spielberg has produced in quite a while.

No horse play!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Albert, Benedict Cumberbatch, film, horse, horses, Joey, Movies, non-review review, oscar bait, Oscars, review, Saving Private Ryan, spielberg, steven spielberg, tom hiddleston, war horse, World War, World War I | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Green Hornet

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Darren

Green Hornet is an interesting film, if only because it’s hard to figure out the potential audience. It adopts a brutally cynical approach to the types of superhero films that have been released over the past few years, while remaining steeped in their trappings. It’s a comedy, but it doesn’t venture too far into slapstick or laugh-out-loud moments (though there are more than a couple). Instead, it seems to smirk its way through the movie, deconstructing the sort of plots, characters and dialogue that superhero films give us, but never completely tilting its hand. It’s hard to tell if this is a parody of a standard superhero film, or a straight-forward example of one – the movie fluctuates between the two extremes, but never really picks one and engages full throttle.

A bomb...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Britt, bruce wayne, comedy, Comics, david gordon green, deconstruction, edward furlong, Edward James Olmos, Gondry, green hornet, Kato, Michel Gondry, non-review review, review, Seth Rogen, Swiss Army Knife | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Shame

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Darren

Shame is a masterpiece, a master class in cinema, and the perfect example of a director and lead actor working synchronously and seamlessly. The movie wouldn’t work without director Steve McQueen willing to push it as far as possible, knowing when to pull back and when to dive in, matched by Michael Fassbender’s fearlessness, throwing himself into a naked performance. (This is where I make a cheap joke about it being “in more ways than one.”) Shame is pretty much the perfect note on which to start 2012.

Stands out from the crowd...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Carey Mulligan, Fassbender, film, McQueen, Michael Fassbender, Motion Picture Association of America film rating system, Movie, new york, New York City, non-review review, review, Sexual addiction, steve mcqueen, subway, youtube | 10 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Dracula – Prince of Darkness

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Darren

It’s interesting that Hammer chose to package Dracula: Prince of Darkness in the “best of” collection I picked up for my gran over Christmas. It isn’t that it’s hardly the strongest entry in Hammer’s canon, but it’s also not the strongest instalment in their Dracula franchise. It’s the third release in the series chronologically (and, arguably, in terms of quality), following The Horror of Dracula and The Brides of Dracula). It’s not a bad film, if you’re a fan of these sorts of sixties gothic horrors, but it’s not necessarily a good one either. It’s functional, if not efficient, and never really finds anything particularly compelling about any of its characters or its set up.

You can Count on me!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Andrew Keir, Christopher Lee, Darcula: prince of Darkness, dracula, DRACULA PRINCE A DARKNESS, film, Hammer Film Productions, hammer horror, Jimmy Sangster, Lee, Movie, non-review review, Peter Cushing, review | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Iron Lady

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Darren

Margaret Thatcher is a complex character. She’s certainly a divisive political figure, but I think that her detractors and her supporters would both admit that the woman isn’t a two-dimensional pop psychology case. The biggest problem with The Iron Ladyis the way that it attempts to offer a simplistic analysis of Thatcher, presenting her as a failure of a wife and a mother who compensated by running her cabinet and her country like a stern matriarch. While Streep gives a solid performance, and director Phyllida Lloyd tries her best to make the movie visually engaging, it feels a bit cheap and shallow. It doesn’t help that the movie trots out the familiar Oscar-baiting bio-pic clichés as if it were assembling an IKEA cabinet. Whatever you may think of Thatcher, she deserved more nuance and complexity than The Iron Lady affords her.

The Broad(bent) strokes...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Falklands War, film, Iron Lady, John Major, margaret thatcher, Movie, non-review review, oliver stone, Phyllida Lloyd, review, Richard E. Grant, thatcher, The Iron lady | 4 Comments »

Geoff Johns’ Run on The Flash – The Dastardly Death of the Rogues & The Road to Flashpoint (Review)

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” I’ll be starting with the most recent one, Flashpoint, following a week full of Flash stories.

It’s hard not to look at Geoff Johns’ return to The Flash and wonder what might have been. After all, his original run solidified Johns as a talent to watch in the superhero field, fed into his iconic Green Lantern run and paved the way to his ascent up the DC food chain. And it’s quite clear that DC were putting a lot of energy into pushing The Flash as the next “breakout franchise”, clearly hoping that Johns could find an angle on the character and mythos that would push the book up the sales charts to match the Batman and Green Lantern franchises. That obviously didn’t happen, but it feels like a shame because it very nearly could have happened, had things gone a little differently.

Flash! A-ha! He saves every one of us!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: comic books, Comics, dc comics, dcnu, final crisis, flash, Flash (comics), flashpoint, flashpoint (comics), Francis Manapul, geoff johns, grant morrison, green lantern, reverse flash, review, road to flashpoint, rogues, the dastardly death of the rogues, The Flash (comics), the rogues, time travel | Leave a comment »

Flash: Rebirth (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” I’ll be starting with the most recent one, Flashpoint, but – in the spirit of the character – we’re going to have a marathon run through Flash stories before we get there. Check back daily this week for more Flash-ified goodness…

From the outset, Flash: Rebirth was going to be an infinitely more complex endeavour for writer Geoff Johns than Green Lantern: Rebirth had been. Both miniseries aimed to firmly establish an older legacy character (in both cases, the iteration of the character active in the late fifties/early sixties) as the core of that particular franchise, replacing their replacements, as it were. However, Hal Jordan had been absent for about ten years, and had been hovering around the DC Universe in various guises during his absence from the role of Green Lantern. Barry Allen, on the other hand, had been gone twenty years and his appearances had been far scarcer. There had been a whole generation of fans (including the author of this miniseries) who grew up with Wally West as the Flash. Bringing Barry back was always going to be tricky, but here it becomes evident just how tricky.

A darker shade of red?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Abra Kadabra, art, Barry, barry allen, comic book review, comic books, Comics, continuity, dc comics, dc universe, dcu, ethan van sciver, final crisis, flash, geoff johns, Greenlantern, hal jordan, justice society of america, rebirth, resurrection, retcon, retroactive continuity, reverse flash, review, silver age, speed force, the flash, The Flash: Rebirth, wally west, zoom | Leave a comment »

Geoff Johns’ Run on The Flash – Ignition, The Secret of Barry Allen, Rogue War

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Darren

Superman soars above everyone. Batman hides from everyone. Wonder Woman preaches to everyone.

Me? I run right alongside everyone. My name’s Wally West. You probably know the rest.

– The Flash reintroduces himself, The Secret of Barry Allen

Geoff Johns’ run on The Flash can really be split into two distinct sub-runs. The first saw him working with artist Scott Kolins, defining Keystone and building up a supporting cast. The second, following the climax of Blitz, is something of a revised origin for the character – an attempt by Johns to tell his own particular version of an origin story for the character. Of course, it isn’t a literal origin like his own Green Lantern: Secret Origin or Superman: Secret Origin, rather a rediscovery. Although I do have a slight preference for the earlier half the run, there’s no denying that Johns has put together quite a wonderful story during his tenure on The Flash.