Posted on November 15, 2009 by Darren
Wes Craven is a very odd man. On one hand, you have the luminary who gave us the breathtakingly original slants on the horror movie which we saw in A Nightmare on Elm Street, New Nightmare and the Scream franchise, along with his talent as a straight-forward thriller director in Red Eye. On the other hand you have the king of schlock, the man behind pointless gore fests like the original Last House on the Left or The Hills Have Eyes or even Dracula 2000. And, on a third severed hand you’d probably find lying around his trailer somewhere, you have the Wes Craven who wholeheartedly approves and supports schlokier remakes of his schlokiest films. Like this, the remake of Last House on the Left.
The only thing to fear is the quality of the movie itself...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brutalisation, feminism, film, horror, last house on the left, Movie, non-review review, remake, review, slasher, the last house on the left, victimisation, wes craven | Leave a comment »
Posted on November 13, 2009 by Darren
In my defense, I haven’t seen the original 2002 movie The Gathering Storm, to which this movie serves as a sequel – but I think the movie (as a historical piece) stands very well on its own two feet. Besides, aside from the producers (the brothers Scott, obviously attempting to follow Spielberg into the World War II market) and writer (Hugh Whitemore), the series has little in common with its illustrious predecessor. The director is new. The roles have been recast. If it weren’t for the linking theme of the word ‘Storm’ in the title and the fact that this movie picks up where the other left off (at least chronologically), there would be nothing to really tie it down. So, with the confession that I have not seen the original made-for-TV movie, what did I think of Into The Storm?
Cry Havok! And let slip the insurance-selling dogs of war!
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews, Television | Tagged: brendan gleeson, churchill, drama, hbo, into the storm, made-for-television, Movie, non-review review, review, Television, winston churchill | 2 Comments »
Posted on November 12, 2009 by Darren
Hmm… A perfectly adequate action movie. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly not a top-of-the-line model.
Hardly an original model...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: angelina jolie, cars, film, gone in 60 seconds, gone in sixty seconds, Movies, nicholas cage, non-review review, review, robert duvall, stealing cars | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 11, 2009 by Darren
Well, I guess the Ultimate line is supposed to be a vehicle for redefining old Marvel stories, so it seems appropriate that the Ultimate Hulk has been getting around knocking seven kinds of crap out of various heroes. He was the first opponent Mark Millar’s superteam faced in The Ultimates, he had this themed face-off with Iron Man last year and this year he squared off with Wolverine in the infamously delayed Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine series (in a fitting echo: Wolverine originated as a Hulk opponent). The book is an obvious attempt to cash in on Marvel’s two big summer blockbusters last year: The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man. Still, as cash-ins go, it’s reasonably diverting.
I quite like him when he's angry...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: cary nord, hulk, iron man, marvel, marvel ultimate universe, marvel universe, review, ultimate hulk, ultimate hulk vs. iron man, ultimate hulk vs. iron man - ultimate human, ultimate hulk vs. ultimate iron man, ultimate human, ultimate iron man, ultimate leader, ultimate marvel, warren ellis | Leave a comment »
Posted on November 10, 2009 by Darren
The first member of The Ultimates to get spun-off into his own book, the ultimate version of Iron Man is also the only one to get his own miniseries (and he even supported another miniseries, Ultimate Human, last summer and has a new one, Ultimate Armour Wars, this year). Here we have all the ingredients for a great superhero saga – Andy Kubert as artist on the first six issues and Orson Scott Card as a writer – but it just doesn’t come together quite as well as it should. Though Card posits some interesting theries behind the psychology of Marvel’s current poster-boy, he doesn’t really deliver anything of interest on the story front, and really suffers from attempting to write rebellous teenage characters and somehow feeling required to craft his observations into something resembling a cookie-cutter superhero plot.
Nice Suit...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: andy kubert, comic books, iron man, marvel, orson scott card, pasqual ferry, review, the ultimate, tony stark, ultimate iron man, ultimate marvel, ultimate universe | Leave a comment »
Posted on November 9, 2009 by Darren
Oliver Stone famously rushed just about every aspect of this production in order to get it into cinemas before last year’s November election. Does that affect the movie? It does and it doesn’t. It doesn’t in that Stone seems to have a clear image of the President in his head and it’s perfectly captured on screen. It does affect the movie in that Stone has to choose an arbitrary cutoff point for his movie, since he can’t end it with the end of Bush’s presidency. So he chooses the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 to serve as the film’s ending. That point arguably suits the central thesis of Stone’s psychological profile of the man, butit also serves to make that thesis seem heavy-handed or forced. The other side of that coin is that I doubt the Stone would have been able to market and sell the film for a few years after the end of the Bush administration, and the fact that so vintage a diretcor as Stone can still make such a raw and energetic film is a testament to his abilities (that some of us may have doubted after World Trade Centre and Alexander).
Misunderestimate at your peril...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: biography, biopic, dubya, elizabeth banks, film, george w. bush, james cromwell, josh brolin, Movie, non-review review, oliver stone, presidency, president, review, scott glenn, texas, toby jones, w., white house | 3 Comments »
Posted on November 8, 2009 by Darren
Possibly one of the best depictions of Irish humour that I’ve seen captured in celluloid, In Bruges is a fascinating little story of honour, loyalty, stupidity and a small little town in Belgium. The movie was a highlight in the very solid pantheon of 2008. Featuring a sharp script, a fantastic cast and some really lovely scenery, the movie stabnds as one of the best comedies I’ve seen in yonks. And a yonk is a long time.
Irish charm...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: belgium, brendan gleeson, bruges, colin farrell, comedy, film, in bruges, martin mcdonagh, non-review review, ralph fiennes, review | 3 Comments »
Posted on November 5, 2009 by Darren
Now we’re getting into it. It seems that Robinson has got all the setup necessary to move the story forward out of the way (or at least the bulk of it) and that Tony Harris has finally found his feet on the series. This collection moves a lot more fluidly than the last one – partially due to the fact that it closes as many threads as it opens, but also because Robinson is no free of having to establish the series’ premise and can now focus on the stories that he wants to tell (almost, we’ll come to the exceptions). Those stories are – by and large – reflective studies of what is known as “The Golden Age” of comic books: the 1930s and 1940s. What happened to the world between then and now? What happened to the heroes? Was it ever really the kinder gentler place we recall?
And it's our first Chrismas-themed image... Earlier every year...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: arts, comic books, Comics, Comics Code Authority, crossovers, dc comics, Eisner Award, jack knight, james robinson, review, sandman, Silver Age of Comic Books, starman, starman omnibus, ted knight, the shade, tony harris, underworld unleashed, wesley dodds, zero hour | Leave a comment »
Posted on November 3, 2009 by Darren
All of this has happened before… and will happen again.
With that line articulated by the Cylon Leoben Conroy in the episode Flesh and Bone, the producers and writers lay their cards on the table. Time is cyclical. Maybe for the grand design of human history, but most definitely for storytelling. Battlestar Galactica is possibly the most wonderfully dense and layoured piece of popular culture which I have had the joy of savouring since first cracking open Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. It’s magical, it’s mystical, and it’s wonderful. How Ronald D. Moore turned a kitsch footnote in television science fiction history into this, I will never know. I am just thankful.
Time's Arrow is cyclical...
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Filed under: Television | Tagged: 33, adama, all this has happened before, baltar, battlestar galactic season 1, battlestar galactica, bluray, cyclic, cylons, faith, god, kobol's last gleaming, litmus, religion, review, six, the hand of god, war on terror, you can't go home again | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 3, 2009 by Darren
I took my aunt to the cinema this weekend and she waited until we had left the screening to tell me that she wanted to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox, so we had gone to see a very false compromise – the “highest grossing concert film of all time”, the Michael Jackson flick This Is It. It was significantly better than our last attempt to go to the cinema – the truly dire Love Happens – but that’s a mixed sentiment at best, isn’t it?
Is This It?
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: concert, michael jackosn, non-review review, review, this is it | Leave a comment »
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