review | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call New Orleans

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Darren

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a mess of a movie. I don’t mean that as praise, nor do I mean it as criticism. It’s just a jumble of ideas and scenes, plot contrivances and random incidents, all tied together through the central performance of Nicolas Cage as Lieutenant Terrence McDonagh. Watching the film, I’m not entirely convinced that it really works, but I do have increased respect for Nicolas Cage, who seems to hold Werner Herzog’s shattered examination together through the sheer force of his performance.

Off the cuff...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Abel Ferrara, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, brendan gleeson, Call New Orleans, film, ghost rider, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, nicolas cage, non-review review, review, Werner Herzog | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Bronson

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Darren

Nicolas Refn’s Bronson is a rough film, quite like its central character. It’s tough and it’s challenging, and it doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, very much like “Britain’s most violent prisoner.” While it’s probably quite frustrating for most viewers, I actually quite admired the fact that Refn doesn’t try to explain or rationalise the conduct of his central character, instead daring to examine a man who is so institutionalised that he thinks of prison as a “hotel”, a hotel he’s been staying in for well over thirty-five years.

Like a caged animal...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bronson, Charles Bronson, Charlie Bronson, david bowie, Michael Gordon Peterson, Nicolas Winding Refn, non-review review, Pet Shop Boys, Refn, review, Thin White Duke, tom hardy | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: 30 Days of Night

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Darren

I really wanted to like 30 Days of Night. I’m a sucker for vampire films, and David Slade’s adaptation of the horror comic started off on all the right notes, with a rather ingenious central concept. After all, if you were a vampire, could you imagine a better hunting ground than a town that spends thirty days in absolute and complete darkness, isolated completely from the outside world? It’s a novel take, and one that really should be more interesting than the rather generic desaturated gore fest that it becomes.

In need of a reVamp?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 30 Days of Night, Alaska, arts, Ben Foster, David Slade, film, horror, Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, non-review review, Otherkin, People, review, vampire, Vampire film | 1 Comment »

Absolute Planetary, Vol. 2 (Review)

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Darren

With Wildstorm being officially folded into the relaunched DCU (the “DCnU”), I thought I might take a look at some of the more successful and popular Wildstorm titles that the company produced. In particular, Planetary, the which will apparently inspire Paul Cornell’s Stormwatch – easily one of my more anticipated titles of the relaunch.

“We keep the world strange because that’s the way it’s suppose to be.”

– Elijah Snow outlines Planetary‘s mission

I really do love Warren Ellis’ Planetary, a love letter to pulp fiction in all its forms, about a team of crack pop culture archeologists, tracking down and preserving many of the weird and wonderful fictional specimens that we see all too rarely these days, from cowboy vigilantes to kung-fu epics. There’s a genuine love poured into the series by Ellis and his artistic collaborator, John Cassaday, as the pair celebrate some of the truly wonderful fiction of the twentieth century, as we brace ourselves for the twenty-first.

Little drummer boy...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Absolute Planetary, alan moore, arts, comic book reviews, comic books, dc comics, Elijah Snow, Ellis, Garth Ennis, grant morrison, IPad, john cassaday, Paul Cornell, Planetary, randall dowling, review, the four, warren ellis, wildstorm | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Law Abiding Citizen

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Darren

Law Abiding Citizen is an interesting movie. It’s a well-made thriller that seems to have some underlining arguments about the justice system and civil liberties, even if it tends to get a bit muddled towards the end. However, director F. Gary Gray knows how to handle tension, and has two very strong leading actors, which helps carrying an intriguing premise through some of the difficulties it has with its own moral philosophy.

Naked guns?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Clyde, Clyde F.C., Death Wish, F. Gary Gray, film, gerard butler, jamie foxx, Law-Abiding Citizen, Movies, non-review review, review | Leave a comment »

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (BBC) (Review)

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Darren

Let’s not be melodramatic. Control would disapprove.

– Smiley sums it up

It’s odd coming to the BBC’s 1979 adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in the opposite direction of most fans. I’ve never read la Carre’s original novel, and I saw Tomas Alfredson’s movie before watching the miniseries. So my perspective is slightly askew, as if I’m moving in the wrong direction. My viewing of the miniseries is informed more by the 2011 movie than by the book that inspired it. Still, it’s very hard not to be impressed by the television adaptation, which really seems like it pulled out all the stops in translating the story from page to screen, featuring an all-star cast, of which Sir Alec Guinness is only the front man.

Smiley fellow, eh?

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Alec Guinness, bbc, gary oldman, George Smiley, John le Carré, Joss Ackland, Peter Guillam, review, Smiley, Television, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tomas Alfredson | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Too Big To Fail

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Darren

I’ll admit to being quite impressed with the work HBO have done of late. I’m not so much talking about their production of some of the finest drama on television, but instead talking about the fantastic job they’ve done in bringing original drama to life inside the format of television movies. There was a time that television movies were mocked and frowned upon, something of a guilty pleasure rather than an artform to take seriously, but HBO has done a rather sterling job of late, producing films like The Special Relationship, which I thought might have supported even a small-scale theatrical run. Too Big To Fail is just as good, if not slightly better – focusing on the United States financial collapse of 2008, it brings together an all-star cast under a fantastic director to offer a movie that is far more interesting and compelling than any drama based on number crunching really ought to be.

Bringing the Hurt...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Curtis Hanson, hbo, Henry Paulson, Lehman Brothers, Lehmann Brothers, non-review review, paul giamatti, review, Too big to fail, United States | Leave a comment »

The Absolute Authority, Vol. 2 (Review)

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Darren

With Wildstorm being officially folded into the relaunched DCU (the “DCnU”), I thought I might take a look at some of the more successful and popular Wildstorm titles that the company produced. In particular, The Authority, the superhero saga that spun out of Stormwatch – a series that is getting its own post-relaunch book written by Paul Cornell, easily one of my more anticipated titles.

In many ways, it was The Authority that established Mark Millar and Frank Quitely as talents to watch in their own rights, rather than through their associations with Grant Morrison. As a concept, the series was launched by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, but the duo picked their own replacements. I have to say, I think they chose rather wisely, even if the series has lost a rather considerable amount of its bite nearly a decade after its initial publication. That said, it’s still a highly entertaining superhero book, and one which had more than its fair share of influence on the mainstream titles over the last ten or so years.

There's a new Authority in town...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: All Star Superman, Bryan Hitch, censored, censorship in comic books, comic book review, comic book superheroes, comic books, controversy, dc universe, deconstruction, frank quitely, Garth-Morrison, jack kirby, jeph loeb, mark millar, midnighter, midnighter (comic books), midnighter (comics), Paul Cornell, politics, review, sencorship, superheroes, the authority, the authority (comic book), the authority (comics), warren ellis, wildstorm, world war ii | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Tree of Life

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Darren

Terence Malick’s Tree of Life stems from the beginning of the universe to “the end of time.”It’s hard to imagine any film with a similar scope, let alone one focused on the troublesome relationship between a nuclear family in the mid-to-late-twentieth century. The easiest way to summarise Malick’s epic yet intimate drama is describe it as a profound meditation on the history of the cosmos, reflected through a child’s coming-of-age tale. Confused? I don’t blame you. I’m slightly confused and I just watched the damn thing.

A beautiful sequence of images...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: bbc, Book of Job, christianity, Father, film, Filmmaking, god, Koyaanisqatsi, Movies, non-review review, Old Testament, Religion and Spirituality, review, Terrence Malick, theology, Tree of Life | 5 Comments »

Doctor Who: The God Complex (Review)

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

The God Complex originally aired in 2011.

It’s time we saw each other as we really are.

– The Doctor

It really is like the McCoy era all over again, isn’t it? The Impossible Astronaut gave us a scheming and manipulative Doctor. Night Terrors felt like it was drawn from the same cloth as Survival, with the faintest trace of Paradise Towers. Here, we get to revisit the ideas at the heart of The Curse of Fenric. Moffat’s second season has really been about the writer defining his own way of making Doctor Who, following a debut season that followed the same structure as the four years overseen by Russell T. Davies.

Here, Moffat is deconstructing the myth of the Doctor, in a way that draws on and contrasts with Davies’ “the Lonely God”, without going to the excess of “the Time Lord Victorious.” Indeed, with the whole dynamic between the Doctor and Amy drawing on one careless miscalculation the character made, changing a young girl’s life forever, one can’t help but wonder if there was more than a hint of truth in what the Doctor confessed to Amy to break her faith in him. “I took you with me because I was vain,” he tells her, “because I wanted to be adored.”

More than ever, it seems there’s a bit of truth in the Doctor’s admission that, “I’m not a hero.” Russell T. Davies has the Doctor follow a similar trajectory, albeit on a larger scale – episodes like Midnight and The Waters of Mars represented massive failings on the part of the Doctor. Moffat draws on the same sort of idea, but renders the Doctor’s failures much more intimate. It isn’t so much that the Eleventh Doctor fails to save the world or defeat the monster, it’s that he fails the people close to him so frequently and thoroughly.