The Sum of All Fears is a strange little beast. By changing the nature of the movie’s threat from Middle Eastern terrorists to a secret cult of Nazis, the film seems to want to avoid seeming “heavy” or “relevent.”However, any form of entertainment that depicts a nuclear attack on a US city on the same scale as that depicted here, seems to carry a lot of weight with it anyway. I think that’s really the core problem with an otherwise reasonable solid film, the fact that it has difficulty balancing what should be an uncomfortable viewing experience with an attempt not to upset anyone.
I’ve really liked Mark Gatiss’ contributions to Doctor Who. While not amongst the very best the series has to offer, The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot’s Lantern were both very solid monster-of-the-week episodes with clever concepts, a huge amount of energy and a sharp wit. Night Terrors shares all these attributes with those two earlier of Gatiss’ stories, but benefits from a wonderfully endearing sense of nostalgia and a very effective urban setting we really haven’t seen since the end of the Davies era.
Kevin Smith’s latest film, Red State, seems like a break out of the director’s comfort zone. While the director has tackled the idea of organised religion before (in the superb Dogma), his latest effort seems like something decidedly more serious. Being entirely honest, I’m always eager to see an established director attempt something that we’d never expect from them, and Smith’s cast (John Goodman, Melissa Leo and Kevin Pollack) is populated with enough skilled (and underrated) performers that it looks to be well worth a chance. If nothing else, the exploration of extremist religious groups in the United States always makes for a juicy viewing experience, even if Smith might not be going for a lot nuance. It looks like a mish-mash of a whole host of subgenres – from the hints at awkward teen comedy at the start to a sinister horror thriller through to an all-out action adventure. It seems like a lot for the director to handle, but the cocktail is intriguing enough to grab my attention.
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.
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.
You know, just once I’d like to see a play about a functional American family living within their means and completely satisfied with their circumstances. Still, Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class is a fairly solid deconstruction of the American Dream, a play that was – when produced – a prescient condemnation of a society living well beyond their means. Indeed, there are more than a few uncomfortable laughs during the play that suggest it’s just as relevant today (especially when certain characters trumpet land as a solid investment which only increases in value). Curse of the Starving Class is a solid production from the Abbey that handles a well-respected play in competent manner, but isn’t necessarily exceptional.
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.
This movie was seen as part of Movie Fest, the rather wonderful film festival organised by Vincent and everybody else over at movies.ie. It was well worth attending, and I’m already looking forward to next year. Good job all.
Drive took home Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, and it’s easy to see why. This pulpy retro crime thriller is an intense joyride featuring what might hopefully be a long over-due star-making role for Ryan Gosling.
The obvious point of comparison for Takers is The Town, Ben Affleck’s bank-robbing thriller that opened around the same time. However, I think it’s a misleading comparison, if only because Affleck’s film feels far more specific and nuanced in scope than this heist thriller. Instead, I think the best point of reference for this particular feature film is to consider is as “Heat for the MTV generation.” Of course, any film’s going to come out quite badly from that synopsis, but I do think it’s fair, as it speaks to both the strengths and (perhaps more importantly) the weaknesses of this particular film.
I loved Super 8. It was just a wonderfully made coming-of-age tale that paid excellent homage to those old Spielberg films (even those he produced, like The Goonies, not just the ones he directed). However, as I got thinking about the film, and the plot that focuses on a rather ugly-looking alien escaped from government custody, I did find myself somewhat conflicted in what to make of the menace. Was it a poor victim of torture and inhumane treatment at the hands of the United States military, or was it a genuinely evil creature that deserved to be put down? It’s interesting how Abrams manipulates us into feeling sympathy for the creature, despite the fact it tends to feast on innocent human flesh.
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