reviews | the m0vie blog

My 12 for ’14: Guardians of the Galaxy and “the Day I Left Earth”…

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Darren

With 2014 coming to a close, we’re counting down our top twelve films of the year. Check back daily for the latest featured film.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a Marvel movie through-and-through. It comes with burdened with all the trappings that one expects from a Marvel film. Thanos provides a mostly superfluous element that clouds the narrative while serving as an advertisement for a film several years away. Ronan the Accuser makes for a suitably banal villain, like a cosplaying fan who won’t choose between his deep abiding affection for Thor and his love of the Smurfs. The third act is a jumbled mess, one that occasionally loses sight of its characters amid all the CGI spectacle.

And, yet, it works in spite all this. One of Marvel’s biggest problems as a movie studio is the way that it tends to smother individual creators in pursuit of a more consistent project. The studio’s best films – Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 – are the films that aren’t afraid to let a writer or director’s voice shine through. In contrast, the weakest entries – Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 2 – try desperately to drown out any hint of personality in pursuit of something that can be homogenised; rendered safely within the studio’s comfort zone.

After all, Marvel is a company that likes to play it safe. It is a studio that would replace Edgar Wright with Peyton Reed for Ant Man. It is a movie that would gladly have Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spin its wheels for two-thirds of a season so it can wait for Captain America: The Winter Soldier to arrive in theatres. It is a studio that has build six movies around blonde white actors named Chris without a single female- or minority-led superhero film. (Sure, Black Panther and Captain Marvel are coming… eventually, but Black Widow remains a rotating co-star.)

To be fair to Marvel, this system makes a certain amount of sense. It avoids horrific misfires like Catwoman or Elektra, but also does not allow for anything as transcendental and unique as Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan’s work with Batman. Guardians of the Galaxy is very much a product of this system. It is safe, hitting all the necessary plot beats and offering minutes of screentime (and plot convolutions) as tribute to the shared universe. However, there is just enough of James Gunn left in the final product to make it all worthwhile. The film retains a sense of oddness and charm that prevents it from ever feeling generic.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: avengers, best of 2014, films, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, iron man, marvel, Marvel Studios, reviews, starlord, the avengers | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Unbroken

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Darren

The true story of Louis Zamperini is absolutely fascinating. It lends itself to this sort of big spectacle. It has everything you need for a movie that might clean up during awards season: a historical setting; a war; a sporting story about triumph of adversity; incredible physical transformations from the cast; a character enduring incredible hardship and coming out the other side. These are the sorts of ingredients that make a Best Picture contender. Unbroken just heaps more and more on top of these already alluring elements.

It isn’t the terrible and messy script that ultimately defeats Unbroken, with beloved filmmakers Joel and Ethan Cohen at the top of the bill. It isn’t the pedestrian unchallenging direction, either. It isn’t Alexandre Desplat’s condescending and patronising score, that doesn’t trust the audience to determine what they should be feeling from one moment to the next. It is not even the cynical Coldplay song playing over the closing credits, to put a pleasant life-affirming spin on events.

The Oscar race is on…

The detail that really shatter Unbroken is the fact that all of this has been very carefully and meticulously calibrated to check off the requisite items on the big Oscar check list. Unbroken is just as mechanical and lifeless a production as Transformers 4, but it happens to be built for a different purpose. There is no energy here, no enthusiasm, no emotion. It is just a bunch of things that have been successful in other stories heaped on top of one another, hoping to hit the high score on that fateful morning in January 2015.

Despite managing to eat up an incredible amount of attention and discussion in the larger Oscar race – taking attention off far more deserving contenders – Unbroken is a complete and utter misfire.

“This is what happens to anybody who suggests Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence is a better Japanese prisoner of war film.”

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: clichés, evil, film, films, forgiveness, japan, louis zamperini, Movie, Movies, non-review review, Oscar season, review, reviews, unbroken, war | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Birdman (or, The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Darren

Birdman is a staggeringly cynical piece of work.

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s showbusiness satire has its knives out from the opening sequence, and never puts them away. It is a movie that is relentlessly snarky and bitter about just about any facet of the artistic process. The movie seldom pulls its punches, lawing into its targets with a vengeance. There are points where it almost seems too much, where it feels like Iñárritu might be better served to pull back or ease off for a moment as the film becomes just a little bit too much.

Showtime!

Then again, Iñárritu turns the film’s relentlessness into a visual motif, structuring Birdman as one long unbroken take. This structure is only slightly disingenuous. While there are any number of “cheats” that allow Birdman to stitch together multiple takes, the end result is still a hugely ambitious and impressive piece of work. Even viewers as cynical as the film itself may find themselves marvelling at some of the incredibly fluid transitions and extended sequences. Birdman‘s anger might occasionally come close to suffocating, but its energy is infectious.

That is to say nothing of the performance at the centre of the film, with Michael Keaton playing a washed-up has-been celebrity desperately (and pathetically) fighting for artistic credibility after a career spent in blockbuster cinema. One of the more interesting aspects of Birdman is that it seems just as dismissive of the attempts at artistic rehabilitation as it does of the original “sell out” work. Birdman is a wry, clever and vicious piece of work. It is also a phenomenal accomplishment.

You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Andrea Riseborough, birdman, comedy, edward norton, Emma Stone, films, hollywood, meta, michael keaton, Movies, reflexive, reviews, show business, superhero, washed-up | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Book of Life

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Darren

Book of Life bristles with energy – almost too much energy at times.

Book of Life is a sumptuous feast for the eyes, dynamic and beautiful, elegantly crafted and lovingly staged. It is packed with eye-popping visuals and an electric energy. In many ways, these help to compensate for a script that is simultaneously under-plotted and hyperactive. The basic plot arc of Book of Life – and the trajectory of all the featured characters – can be mapped from the opening scenes, while the movie is over-stuffed with pop culture references and snappy asides.

Book of Life is exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure, almost perfectly calibrated for its ninety-minute runtime. The result is a stylish and suave animated film that pops out of the screen, even if it doesn’t lodge in the memory. There’s little here that hasn’t been done before, but rarely has it been done so stylishly.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: book of life, films, Movies, non-review review, review, reviews | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Life Support (Review)

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Darren

This September and October, we’re taking a look at the jam-packed 1994 to 1995 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

Life Support is the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to air after Star Trek: Voyager went on the air. It’s amazing how quickly Deep Space Nine settled back into the role of “the other Star Trek show on television.” A lot of attention was focused on launching Voyager, with the show put in the awkward position of launching (and, in the years ahead, supporting) the new television network UPN. As a result, Voyager got a lot of press and a higher profile.

Deep Space Nine fell back into familiar routines. Life Support is far from an exceptional piece of Deep Space Nine. In fact, it’s a deeply flawed piece of television. However, it feels free of the identity crisis that dominated the first half of the third season. This is Deep Space Nine free of the expectations of being “the only Star Trek on television”, and allowed the freedom to just keep doing whatever it wants to do.

It doesn’t do any of the things that it wants to do particularly well, but it does them in its inimitable way.

Dead air…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Bajor, bareil, Cardassia, Federation, kai, reviews, Sisko, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the friends of vedek bareil, voyager, Winn | 10 Comments »

Greg Rucka and Marco Checchetto’s Run on The Punisher, Vol. 9 (Review)

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Darren

This March, to celebrate the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we’ll be taking a look at some classic and not-so-classic Avengers comic books. Check back daily for the latest updates!

The Punisher isn’t really a complex character.

Indeed, despite his popularity and appeal, there’s really only so much you can do with the character before it feels like you’re repeating yourself. He is a vigilante who brutally murders criminals, possibly because criminals killed his family. That’s part of the reason why Rick Remender’s Punisher run was so exhilarating. It genuinely felt unlike anything that had been done with the character before – even if Remender had to take Frank Castle off the reservation to do it.

Writer Greg Rucka and artist Marco Checchetto came up with their ingenious way of making the Punisher seem novel again. Realising that readers have probably become a little too over-familiar with Frank Castle and his world, Rucka and Checchetto shrewdly decide to look at Frank Castle from the outside, treating the Punisher as something like a force of nature, a terror glimpsed fleetingly as he stalks the concrete jungle.

A smoking gun…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: apathy, Comics, Frank Castle, greg rucka, marco checchetto, new york, nyc, punisher, punisher warzone, reviews, stephen wacker, steven wacker, the punisher, warzone | 1 Comment »

Jameson Cult Film Club: interMission

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Darren

The Jameson Cult Film Club screening of interMission was a wonderful evening, as usual. Converting a warehouse at the end of Hanover Quay into the film’s MegaMart, the gang provided the usual celebratory screening atmosphere. Appropriately enough, brown sauce seemed to be the theme of the event, with crates serving as make-shift tables, bottles served along with tasty grub for those looking to customise their burgers.

(I will confess, though, that I did not see anybody mixing brown sauce with their Jameson, although I’m sure some adventurous soul out there made an attempt.)

Click to enlarge…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Cillian Murphy, Cinema of Ireland, cult film, Cult following, cult movie, David Wilmot, dublin, Intermission (film), jameson cult film club, Movie, reviews | Leave a comment »

Watch Out! The James Cult Film Club is Doing Intermission, 18th June 2013, Dublin!

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Darren

I’m a big fan of the Jameson Cult Film Club. It exists as an ode to classic movies, finding a way to stage beloved classics in a way which encourages audiences to re-engage with them. Transforming a piece of Dublin into a set from the film, hiring actors to bring certain key sequences to life, even serving appropriate snack food, these events are a joyous celebration of pop cinema.

Their next film will be interMission, which is one of my favourite Irish films of the past decade. It feels appropriate to celebrate the movie’s tenth birthday with a celebratory showing at a secret location in the cinema. It’s a great choice, and it’s always a good excuse to celebrate a quality piece of Irish cinema.

Anyway, we’ll hopefully have some tickets to give away in the next week or so to the showing on the 18th June. As with all the Jameson Cult Film Club screenings, the event is free of charge – which is quite nice, I have to say. Tickets are randomly raffled off, and you can sign up as a member at the Jameson Cult Film Club website. If you want some examples of their good work, we’ve got some photos from their screenings of The Blues Brothers, Silence of the Lambs and L.A. Confidential, among other things.

I’m normally quite wary of offering whole-hearted unqualified endorsements on the blog, but it’s really something I’d recommend that every cinephile should try at least once. And, if you’re reading this from outside of Ireland, feel free to check out interMission for a decidedly Irish piece of cinema. Only In Bruges really comes close to it – and that really falls into the quasi-ambiguous “Father Ted” category of “is it an Irish piece of entertainment?”

In the meantime, I’m off to make myself some tea. Maybe even with brown sauce.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, cult film, cult movie, dublin, father ted, film, hollywood, Ireland, los angeles, Movie, reviews | Leave a comment »

12 Movie Moments of 2012: Shared Pop Culture History (Ted)

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Darren

As well as counting down the top twelve films, I’m also going to count down my top twelve movie related “moments” of 2012. The term “moment” is elastic, so expect some crazy nonsense here. And, as usual, I accept that my taste is completely absurd, so I fully expect you to disagree. With that in mind, this is #2…

When it comes to end of year “best of” lists, comedy seems to draw the short straw as a genre. Like some of the less earnest genres, comedy is far too easily overlooked in favour of something more “worthy” of attention. Seth MacFarlane’s Ted has been something of a contentious film this year. Depending on where you sit, the film is either the epitome of everything wrong with American comedy, or it was a refreshingly profane yet heartfelt breath of fresh air. I lean more towards the latter than the former, and I appreciated the way that it played to MacFarlane’s strengths – concealing a surprisingly sincere sentiment behind a cynical and glib exterior.

As such, it’s no surprise that the most effective sequence in the film – the opening credits – managed to play to both that side of MacFarlane and also to his wonderful ability to channel pop culture as something of a shared collective history. Call me sappy, but there was something wonderful about seeing Ted interact with Johnny Carson and watching Ted and John queue for The Phantom Menace in costume, that created a tangible sense of back story between the characters.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: art, avengers, best of both worlds, comedy, Dark Knight Rises, family guy, film, Flash Gordon, John, Johnny Carson, MacFarlane, mark wahlberg, mila kunis, Movie, multimedia, New York City, Phantom Menace, reviews, Roger Moore, Seth MacFarlane, star trek: the next generation, TED, United States | 1 Comment »

12 Movie Moments of 2012: Missing Children (End of Watch)

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Darren

I was not as taken with End of Watch as some were. I enjoyed the film, and I think both Michael Peña and Jake Gyllenhaal gave superb performances, but I think that the decision to structure the arc of these two police officers was a bit of a mistake – as the film resorted to clichés like drug cartels putting out a hit on these two individual cops. The film started as an impressively grounded and candid exploration of what life must be like in the line of fire, but then it became a much more conventional film (albeit shot in an unconventional manner).

Still, when End of Watch was good, it was great. It was raw, powerful stuff that gave an impression of what it must be like to do that job day-in and day-out. At its best, it demonstrated the obvious toll that these small day-to-day incidents must take on those protecting and serving. Often it was the smaller sequences that worked best, those with little-to-no connection to the overriding “cartel” arc – the kinds of things that felt like the stuff that must confront officers of the law on a daily basis.

None was more powerful than the rather simple house call investigating the disappearance of two small children.