Total Recall, to quote the lead character, whoever or whatever he may actually be, might just be “the best mind%&@! yet.”
"Dammit Cohagen, give these people some air!"
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Arnold Schwarzenegger, film, Len Wiseman, mars, michael ironside, Movie, non-review review, Paul Verhoeven, Philip K. Dick, review, ridley scott, Ronny Cox, Sharon Stone, total recall | 4 Comments »
9 looks absolutely lovely, with a heavily stylised computer-generated style that seems intended to evoke the macabre stop-motion style of films like The Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride, along with more traditional and conventional animation. However, as magical as the production on the animated feature might be, the movie – somewhat ironically given the way things work out – lacks soul.
A rag-tag bunch...
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 9 (film), arts, christopher plummer, Corpse Bride, Crispin Glover, dolls, elijah wood, john c. reilly, Nightmare Before Christmas, non-review review, review, Shane Acker | 5 Comments »
A special thanks to the guys over at movies.ie for sneaking us into an advanced preview screening.
Being charitable, Kill List is a complete mess of a film. It has a decent concept, and a solid middle section. However, these are surrounded by an incredibly boring opening half-hour and a monumentally stupid and non-sensical ending. It’s a shame, because one gets the sense that there’s a very clever, very entertaining movie to be found if one can dig deep enough, but it’s very hard to like a film that is so decidedly uneven and feels like an especially random video nasty.
Not exactly light subject matter...
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Ben Wheatley, Contract killing, film, Hit List (film), Hit List (John Keller Mysteries), Hitman, Kill list, Michael Smiley, Movie, non-review review, review, United States | 3 Comments »
I’m sure there must have been a good movie in there somewhere. The story of Wild Bill Hickok hunting down the wild white buffalo from his nightmares through the Old West could have been a compelling one, even if it’s hard to imagine it ever being a classic. Instead, the movie is hackneyed cheese-fest that seems uncertain what to do with itself. It doesn’t help that Charles Bronson, sleepwalking his way through the production, gives the best performance of the film. If that’s not a bad omen, I don’t know what is.
What a load of bull...
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Charles Bronson, doctor who, film, jaws, Manifest Destiny, Moby Dick, Movie, Native American, Native Americans in the United States, non-review review, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, review, United States, White Buffalo | 2 Comments »
It feels like something of a backhanded compliment to describe Shaft as John Singleton’s best movie since Boyz n the Hood. Singleton has been one of those directors who has found himself living in the shadow a tremendously influential and successful debut, struggling to find a way to match or surpass it. I think that his take on the most famous blaxploitation hero of all time, while deeply flawed, works so well because it seems intentionally light. It’s not attempting to be big or epic, or even especially socially conscious, it’s just trying to be a decently entertaining – if slightly cheesy – little thriller.
Who's the cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about?
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Boyz n the Hood, Busta Rhymes, christian bale, Dave Arnold, David Arnold, film, Jeffrey Wright, John Singleton, Movies, non-review review, review, Richard Roundtree, samuel l. jackson, Shafts | Leave a comment »
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.
Let’s Kill Hitler originally aired in 2011.
You’ve got a time machine, I’ve got a gun. What the hell. Let’s kill Hitler.
– Mels drops a title
Well, Steven Moffat made it quite clear from the outset that he was going to play with the structure of his second season as executive producer. The show was split and broadcast in two blocks, straddling the summer. It opened with a rather epic two-part adventure that seemed to show us the end of the Doctor’s journey. Let’s Kill Hitler is positioned in a very strange way. It is simultaneously the light and quirky opening episode of the season’s second block, and also the hour devoted to resolving a lot of the lingering questions overshadowing the arc-driven sixth season of the revived Doctor Who.
It is, in short, a mess. It’s a confident and occasionally brilliant mess, but a mess nonetheless.
Crashing the Nazi Party…
Filed under: Television | Tagged: a good man goes to war, Adolf Hitler, bbc, BBC America, doctor, DoctorWho, Donna Noble, Eleventh Doctor, Good Man Goes to War, Jon Pertwee, Kill Hitler, let's kill hitler, Moffat, review, River Song, steven moffat, Television, time travel | 7 Comments »
Please Give is an interesting little dramedy, with some very well-observed points and a strong cast. It’s smart, it’s biting and it’s quite funny in places, with its wry commentary on some of the more cynical aspects of the human condition. However, I do find myself wondering why the lead characters, wonderfully superficial and weighted down by various forms of guilt, are really worth caring about at.
No mean Peet...
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Amanda Peet, arts, Business and Economy, Catherine Keener, film, GenBank, Guilt, Homeless, Movie, non-review review, Organisations, Please Give, ProfNet, Randall Munroe, rebecca hall, review, Shopping, They (2002 film), United States, USA Today | Leave a comment »
I have to admit, I expected The Borgias to be significantly trashier than it actually was. Instead, the show seems to be something of a more mature and considered big brother of The Tudors, instead of serving as an Italian twin. That’s an observation, and not praise or criticism – there’s something to be said for the energy that cheap blood and sex can instill into even the most flaccid television show, and attempting a slightly more restrained tale of political intrigue is a far more difficult matter. Still, The Borgias has two distinct advantages: Jeremy Irons, and Neil Jordan.
Oh, he just can't wait to be Pope...
Filed under: Television | Tagged: Borgias, House of Borgia, Jeremy Irons, neil jordan, pope, Pope Alexander VI, review, rome, Television, the borgias, Tudor | Leave a comment »
Phone Booth is proof that the high-concept thriller isn’t quite dead yet. A concept that had been floating around Hollywood for decades (with the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, lined up to direct at one point), it seemed that – with the decline of the phone booth and the rise of mobile phones – perhaps the window in which to tell the tale might be closing. Of all the directors to bring the tale to the screen, I don’t think I ever would have expected Joel Schumacher to make one of the most intense and superbly intimate little thrillers ever written to the screen.
There's a lot on the line...
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alfred hitchcock, colin farrell, film, joel schumacher, Katie Holmes, kiefer sutherland, Movies, non-review review, phone booth, phone booth (film), phone booth (movie), Radha Mitchell, review, Woody Allen | 3 Comments »
In light of the massive DC reboot taking place next month, launching with a Geoff Johns and Jim Lee run on a new Justice League title, I thought I’d take a look back at another attempt to relaunch the Justice League, emerging from the then-recent Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Hm. Typical. Just as DC stops collecting Justice League International in these nice little hardcovers, I find that the series is getting back into the sort of swing and rhythm that I really loved about the superb first volume, but which became hard to maintain in equilibrium through the second and third collections. The last two books have veered just a little bit too much into sit-com territory for me. Don’t get me wrong, I like the humour that Giffen and deMatteis bring to the book, but I think it works better as a counterbalance to some nice superhero spectacle or drama, rather than being allowed to run free. The wonderfully wicked, occasionally subversive and often amusing sense of humour is in full effect in this collection, but it also features some nice character-centred storytelling, the type of refreshingly not-too-serious, but never completely out of control, approach that made the first few issues so damn appealing.
The new line-up...?
Filed under: Comics | Tagged: arts, Blue Beetle, comic book review, comic books, Comics, dc comic, dematteis, funny books, geoff johns, Greenlantern, Guy Gardner, hal jordan, humour, J. M. DeMatteis, jla, JLI, jm dematteis, justice league, justice league america, Justice League International, keith giffen, review, ted kord, wonder woman | Leave a comment »
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