Licence To Kill is one of the best Bond movies, if not the best. And Dalton is my favourite incarnation of the misogynist wonder spy. I watched this New Year’s Day after spending the night before at a gypsy rave in a pub in Nottingham. It was a superb tonic…
As a rule I’ll watch anything with Sam Rockwell in. As another rule I’ll read anything by Chuck Palahniuk. This meant I liked Choke. It certainly isn’t as good as the sum of it’s parts, but solid performances can never be underestimated in the power they have to carry a flick.
Kind of like a comic Halloween bonanza edition Trick ‘r Treat delivers a loosely connected tale of all things spooky with creep and gore to spare. Seek it out, it’s not nearly as awful as you think and features a ridiculous in many ways, but cool in a few, take on Red Riding Hood starring none other than Miss Anna Paquin…
The Big Sleep has some of the best dialogue ever written and when you couple this with the fact most of it is being delivered by Bogey, cinema becomes a better place for all. “She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.”
As far as Christmas Eve movies go The Nightmare Before Christmas is no Home Alone or indeed Die Hard, but it isn’t far off.
It’s easy to be cynical about Warrior, but why would you be? Essentially it’s Bloodsport with Tom Hardy and that, as this flick proves, is enough to be pretty fucking peachy.
What? Luc Besson wrote Colombiana? A film about a female assassin. Honestly my jaw is on the floor. Who’d have thought it? And it’s shit? Well, consider me dumbstruck!
There really isn’t too much going on here, Pecker is a very basic send up of the world of arts that is neither funny nor interesting.
Malick is to my mind the greatest living director working today. He just knows no bounds. His scope is phenomenal and his ability to fit it within the confines of a screen, yet lose none of it’s potency and simultaneously deliver a story (however ambiguously) is what auteurs do. The Tree Of Life is another creation of quiet and staggering beauty. It’s long and it lacks a ‘narrative’, but it doesn’t matter, it absorbs… and what is better than that for a viewer? To be engulfed by what is on the screen completely is what we hope for, right? That’s the point.
What is it about Walt and his hot animated chicks? It’s definitely not an accident, these broads are without doubt designed as sexual creatures, Belle from Beauty And The Beast is no different. She’s a total betty.
Watching Midnight Run reminds how much I like 80s action movies. When you get the cream of the crop they really are the business, De Niro’s portrayal of Jack Walsh is plenty tongue in cheek, but tone perfect nonetheless and every scene with Kotto is brilliant. Fast talking and fast paced, just like an action flick is meant to be. It also has a to-and-fro in dialogue that’s rare, and between nearly all the characters throughout, it’s a real testament to the script. Love it.
I Spit On Your Grave is an abysmal remake that pretends to be something other than a glorification of rape. It’s shockingly offensive in it’s moral stance, seemingly saying that it’s alright to be rapey, but you might be killed in a vile manner for your crime, it’s a risk you’re going to have to take. Especially if the girl you’ve beaten, tortured and abused in all the ways this particular screenwriter can imagine (or steal from other works) miraculously survives you doing your worst and despairing suicidal leap from a bridge. Pathetic. It’s not even controversial, it’s mindless shite, I mean what did everyone involved think they were achieving. In fact how the fuck did this get made? Vacuous toss.
I enjoyed the The 40 Year Old Virgin there’s just something about movies with Paul Rudd in that makes them not as deplorable as you expect. He’s like a lucky charm or something, or maybe he’s actually really good? Now there’s a thought. Anyway defo going to start writing parts for him into my scripts, even the heavy stuff.
Confessions is a beautiful, but very dark poem of a film about revenge mostly, but also societal issues centred on alienation born of the cruelty of others. The actors, especially the youngsters are really strong, which intensifies the all ready heavy emotional content. It is though in it’s conclusion that the film starts to bend at right angles the mind of the viewer across all fronts; plot, theme and visuals – a truly explosive climax.
The Visitor is a film about music and relationships set in a milieu concerned with issues of tolerance. It is also a very delicate film about a very indelicate process, that of American’s post 9/11 laws on immigration. Bittersweet, just like many a great film before it.
