Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guests Aoife Martin, Jason Coyle and Ronan Doyle, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.
This time, John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
In the early twenty-first century, Senator Ranse Stoddard returns to the dreary town of Shinbone. What was once a frontier outpost has become a modern town, and the locals are surprised to see such an important figure making the journey. Stoddard has come home to attend the funeral of an old friend, but the occasion brings old memories and dark secrets to the surface.
At time of recording, it was ranked 250th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
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Non-Review Review: Army of the Dead
Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead arrives with relatively few expectations.
There’s something very refreshing and very appealing in this, particularly given the way that Snyder has become a cultural flashpoint due to his work on films like Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, not to mention everything involving the production and release (and subsequent restoration) of Justice League. With all of that in the rear view mirror, it is exciting to sit down and watch as Zack Snyder movie that is… just a Zack Snyder movie.
Warding off evil.
Indeed, Army of the Dead is arguably something of a throwback for the director, marking a return to his earliest work. As a hyper-violent zombie action movie with a satirical edge, Army of the Dead invites comparisons to his first feature-length film, his remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. However, Army of the Dead is not a belated sequel or continuation. It is that rare modern big-budget genre film that stands as much on its own as it is possible for a high-concept zombie movie.
Army of the Dead is not a masterpiece by any stretch. It’s a little indulgent and overlong, suffering from the familiar pacing and tonal issues that affect many movies produced by Netflix. However, Army of the Dead is a fun and interesting genre if approached on its own terms. More than anything, freed from the constraints of established properties and shared universes and the ensuing scrutiny, Army of the Dead feels like Snyder is actually having fun. It is hard to begrudge it that.
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: aliens, apocalypse, army of the dead, brutality, dave bautista, greed, heist, i am legend, mercenaries, non-review review, objectivism, review, social commentary, the end of the world, violence, zack snyder, zombies | Leave a comment »