Cloverfield had some fun moments on the big screen, but if you're going to make another big secret monster movie and advertise it the same way, I'm going to expect more.
Season 3 of LOST started off quite boring but was pretty intense for the final 5 episodes or so. Season 4 IMO was the best season and maybe had the single best episode. After the jaw dropping finale in season 3, I would assume you'd at least want to continue from there.
Abrams is great at grabbing your attention but he can't close.
THE PERFECT HOST
I found this a very twisted, fun little flick. David Hyde Pierce is great as the psychopath "host". The twists aren't as profound as the filmmakers probably intended but it's still an enjoyable ride.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6W8e2tdZ3k&feature=youtu.be
I found this a very twisted, fun little flick. David Hyde Pierce is great as the psychopath "host". The twists aren't as profound as the filmmakers probably intended but it's still an enjoyable ride.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6W8e2tdZ3k&feature=youtu.be
Just watched 5 Days of War, this comes to US theaters in August.
<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pstG_fk_B9s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It's a pretty intense War movie, one good thing about CGI is that it makes War movies look more real and live. 7.5/10
<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pstG_fk_B9s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It's a pretty intense War movie, one good thing about CGI is that it makes War movies look more real and live. 7.5/10
The greatest X-Men First Class Review I have seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ff-vdxh-Iw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ff-vdxh-Iw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Saw the Foo Fighters movie last night. Great doc if you love Rock n Roll. Everything you didn't know or already knew about the Foos in massive HD..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBArTIXhUcg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBArTIXhUcg
Anyone have an opinion on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (original)?
The trailer for the American remake just looks bad.
It didn't move me, but I like Fincher, I like Craig, and I like Skarsgard a great deal. Zaillian, the screen-writer, has some home-runs, namely Schindler's List and Gangs of New York and some absolute drek (Hannibal probably being the biggest offense).
Could go either way. It's not that I hate the material, and there are some elements to the story that I liked. The Swedish films are just really blandly directed to me, but Fincher is anything but bland. But I do believe the tag-line "The feel bad movie of Christmas" - this is some pretty dark, f'ed up stuff at times.
I'll probably just wait to see the remake then so the element of surprise will still be there, I'm usually not a fan of foreign remakes but if the original wasn't even that good in the first place... so who knows, maybe Fincher will make his version the better movie. What he did with The Social Network was genius.
And like Tenn said, the trailer didn't look all that great, but it was more of a teaser, it wasn't that it was a horrible trailer to me, it was...weird, but I'm sure that's what they were going for.
I saw all three "Girl" movies. Nothing to write home about other than the fact that the girl looks like a female Jackie Earl Haley. If you have to watch a modern Swedish film choose Let The Right One In instead...
Black Death - I saw this on a recommendation from Cruds. It's on netflix instant stream for those who are curious.
European medieval movies, when done correctly, can be some of the most unforgiving and brutal affairs of entertainment. And why not? The period wasn't called the "Dark Ages" for nothing - mounting pestilence, rampant ignorance of just about everything in the physical world, unchecked violence and social degradation, and perhaps most of all, a seething hatred for all things non-Christian. Black Death, much like my personal medieval favorite Fleash and Blood, expertly simplifies but punctuates these points.
The premise is fairly simple - agents sent by the Catholic Church travel to a secluded marsh village that is untouched by the Plague. These agents, led by Sean Bean's Ulric, believe that the town is unscathed thanks to dark, demonic practices (re: remember, people loves to burn witches back then). Their mission is to find what they believe is the necromancer, and make a point with him (re: torture and execute him pubically). What they find instead is a pagan village, lively and untouched by the disease, but probably not exactly what it seems.
The film itself borrows heavily from other films, most notably the original Wicker Man. However, things really aren't as cut and dry as one believes them to be, and while the truth isn't exactly a new idea, it is sort of fascinatingly simple with what's going on in the village. Along the way, there are some brutal executions that are presented with enough detachment to make them fairly creepy and unsettling. But perhaps the most disturbing details lie in just what these people believe. Let me say that this is not an Anti-Christian or an Anti-Pagan film at all - the director Christopher Smith doesn't make any hard judgements on either sides. But there is a severe ugliness in all of the characters - not enough to make us hate anyone, but just enough to allow the viewer to sit back and say "Whew, are these people f***ed up in a big way".
With that in mind, the performances are uniformly excellent, and most of them are nuanced based on the sheer pace of the film. Ed Redmayne plays the naive young monk with equal parts uncertainty and sheer terror. Bean, as always, is a brilliant spectacle to behold, and alters the material with his own brew of hellbent intensity. He plays a man of faith and conviction with complete aplomb - the viewer knows within five minutes of screen time that this character will never, ever give up his faith, no matter what. Carice van Houten plays the mysterious and slightly ominous pagan leader of the village, who I thought created decent pangs of pathos in a role that could have easily been severely one-dimensional. The rest of the cast is absolutely fine, my other favorite being the vastly underrated John Lynch as a world-weary knight who has seen far too much carnage in his time.
I sincerely enjoyed this film, and while it ends on a somewhat fascinating note, it truly is not a feel-good period film. It's a movie that does not make a hard stand on what is right and wrong - it simply chooses to tell a story, one that is wrought with a lot of unsettling and disturbing angles of religious intolerance and fear. But often times, that can be the best sort of period drama, one that does not make blanket statements of the time and instead chooses to travel down the dark tunnels of the human heart, wherever they may go.
4/5
European medieval movies, when done correctly, can be some of the most unforgiving and brutal affairs of entertainment. And why not? The period wasn't called the "Dark Ages" for nothing - mounting pestilence, rampant ignorance of just about everything in the physical world, unchecked violence and social degradation, and perhaps most of all, a seething hatred for all things non-Christian. Black Death, much like my personal medieval favorite Fleash and Blood, expertly simplifies but punctuates these points.
The premise is fairly simple - agents sent by the Catholic Church travel to a secluded marsh village that is untouched by the Plague. These agents, led by Sean Bean's Ulric, believe that the town is unscathed thanks to dark, demonic practices (re: remember, people loves to burn witches back then). Their mission is to find what they believe is the necromancer, and make a point with him (re: torture and execute him pubically). What they find instead is a pagan village, lively and untouched by the disease, but probably not exactly what it seems.
The film itself borrows heavily from other films, most notably the original Wicker Man. However, things really aren't as cut and dry as one believes them to be, and while the truth isn't exactly a new idea, it is sort of fascinatingly simple with what's going on in the village. Along the way, there are some brutal executions that are presented with enough detachment to make them fairly creepy and unsettling. But perhaps the most disturbing details lie in just what these people believe. Let me say that this is not an Anti-Christian or an Anti-Pagan film at all - the director Christopher Smith doesn't make any hard judgements on either sides. But there is a severe ugliness in all of the characters - not enough to make us hate anyone, but just enough to allow the viewer to sit back and say "Whew, are these people f***ed up in a big way".
With that in mind, the performances are uniformly excellent, and most of them are nuanced based on the sheer pace of the film. Ed Redmayne plays the naive young monk with equal parts uncertainty and sheer terror. Bean, as always, is a brilliant spectacle to behold, and alters the material with his own brew of hellbent intensity. He plays a man of faith and conviction with complete aplomb - the viewer knows within five minutes of screen time that this character will never, ever give up his faith, no matter what. Carice van Houten plays the mysterious and slightly ominous pagan leader of the village, who I thought created decent pangs of pathos in a role that could have easily been severely one-dimensional. The rest of the cast is absolutely fine, my other favorite being the vastly underrated John Lynch as a world-weary knight who has seen far too much carnage in his time.
I sincerely enjoyed this film, and while it ends on a somewhat fascinating note, it truly is not a feel-good period film. It's a movie that does not make a hard stand on what is right and wrong - it simply chooses to tell a story, one that is wrought with a lot of unsettling and disturbing angles of religious intolerance and fear. But often times, that can be the best sort of period drama, one that does not make blanket statements of the time and instead chooses to travel down the dark tunnels of the human heart, wherever they may go.
4/5
I wanted to make a personal observation, that halfway through the year, this has been one of the poorest showings from Hollywood I believe I've ever seen. I simply cannot recall a more lackluster showing from mainstream films, and I'm not sure I'm bonafide excited for a single Hollywood flick for the rest of the calender year (at least not yet).
But it has been a magnificent showing for independently distributed and internationally shown films. Hobo With A Shotgun (I'll probably do a review on it in July when it releases), 13 Assassins, Attack The Block (again, I'll be doing a review on this when it becomes closer to a wide release), Black Death (review above), and The Guard have all been genuinely interesting and enjoyable films on their own merits, and have truly mitigated the below-average (borderline, well, crap) output by bigger studios. These films, and others I've probably missed, deserve our attention.
But it has been a magnificent showing for independently distributed and internationally shown films. Hobo With A Shotgun (I'll probably do a review on it in July when it releases), 13 Assassins, Attack The Block (again, I'll be doing a review on this when it becomes closer to a wide release), Black Death (review above), and The Guard have all been genuinely interesting and enjoyable films on their own merits, and have truly mitigated the below-average (borderline, well, crap) output by bigger studios. These films, and others I've probably missed, deserve our attention.
Attack the Block looks awesome.
I have Hobo with a Shotgun OnDemand here. I haven't watched it yet.
Also everyone avoid Battle: LA or whatever it is. It is just garbage. 0/5
Attack The Block is a really effective John Carpenter homage (although that is probably selling the film sort - it has its own very unique sense of humor) done by Edgar Wright associate Joe Cornish. It could probably do really well over here stateside if mainstream audiences can get past the heavy South London accents here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgXWKqIGbEk&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgXWKqIGbEk&feature=player_embedded
The Guard looks like comedy genius, can't wait to see it.
Not in Cinemas here in the UK until Aug 19th :irked:
Not in Cinemas here in the UK until Aug 19th :irked:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctcURFb7XE4
Super: The latest regular guy superhero flick, with a twist of Troma. A few decent laughs and a fair share of gross out moments. One of the better Ellen Paige roles as a spazoid comic book nut. Her antics showing off her "skills" made me chuckle. Never expected to see Dwight from The Office get it on with Liv Tyler or get raped by a 'gushy' Ellen Paige...
Super: The latest regular guy superhero flick, with a twist of Troma. A few decent laughs and a fair share of gross out moments. One of the better Ellen Paige roles as a spazoid comic book nut. Her antics showing off her "skills" made me chuckle. Never expected to see Dwight from The Office get it on with Liv Tyler or get raped by a 'gushy' Ellen Paige...
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