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How I spent my weekend Carried on the Chuck Norris theme with the above average Code of Silence (best line of the weekend "If I want your opinion I will beat it out of you") and the enjoyable Missing in Action |
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Lisztomania and Valentino After The Devils last Sunday, decided to have a Ken Russell double bill today. Both films I enjoyed a lot. While the humour of Listz was a little too broad for me (I laughed a lot more during The Devils!), it still had a ramshackle endearing charm, and the bonkers eccentricity ensured it was never boring. One of those films where the obvious flaws only added to the charm. Russell’s imagining of Richard Wagner was really something to behold. Stealing compositions via vampiric blood sucking, staging a Nuremberg Rally with a bunch of children dressed in superhero costumes, creating his own Jew killing Frankenstein’s monster, and finally becoming a guitar/machine gun toting Hitler robot… blimey! Valentino by comparison felt much more restrained (had the air of having more of the dreaded Studio Money behind it). But then again, compared to something like Dickie Attenborough’s nice-but-bland Chaplin biopic, it was a picture of insanity. I enjoyed Russell’s trick of livening up the lengthy expositional scenes by packing a ridiculous amount of happenings into the back of shot. The best example was a long two-way argument over a contract. In the Studio Lot background they stage a huge Wild West shootout, followed by a public hanging, followed by a funeral procession! I also enjoyed there being two key set pieces shot in Blackpool Tower ballroom and circus. A very enjoyable double bill, highly recommended. …and I still haven’t seen Tommy!
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World War Z My wife and I saw this in 3D the other night and found it to be very enjoyable . Now we didn't read the book so we did not mind what ever changes were made. It was very action packed and considering it was a zombie movie there has hardly any gore, this is a perfect zombie movie for those folks who do not like gory movies.
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Been on holiday on the States for the past fortnight but still managed to get a few films in due to long flights and a cinema trip: Oz: The Great and Powerful - not a bad visual representation of Baum's world, if a little too Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland at times. It's definitely too long and Mila Kunis is spectacularly miscast but it's charming enough and Raimi's passion and enthusiasm really shines through A Good Day to Die Hard - aka A Good Day to Die Bored. A really soulless and cynical franchise entry. You can see the attempt at recreating the McClane-as-the-everyman-caught-in-a-bad-situation appeal of the original film with the constant uttering of his "I'm on vacation!" catchphrase (despite the fact that the very reason for the Russian trip was to bail out his son!) and Willis' delivery of the contractually-obliged "Yipppie kay-ai" line is embarrassing and weary. The film makes little sense, McClane is practically superhuman (and resistant to radiation to boot!) even the action set pieces are boring and uninspired and the constant crash zooming is headache-inducing and dated. It's terrible as a bog-standard actioner and even worse as a Die Hard movie. I hope John Moore never directs again Man of Steel - starts off promising but descends into a noisy and boring SMASH SMASH over-long climax. I spent a great deal of Superman Returns hoping Superman would hit something and face a formidable physical threat, something which is overplayed here to the point of tedium. The problem with Superman Returns was that it was too indebted and reverential to the previous films, conversely the problem with Man of Steel is that it almost seems to be embarrassed by the mythology as it tries desperately to invent its own while only ever referring to 'Superman' in a winky, almost-apologetic way. I still maintain a good sequel can be made though. Cop Out - In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that the version I watched was a tv edit, nincompoops, mother lovers and all but I doubt that the added cursing would make the plot any more engaging or the jokes any funnier. It was an absolutely woeful experience, Bruce Willis looked almost as bored as I was and Kevin Smith's assertion that "writing a nasty review for Cop Out is akin to bullying a retarded kid. All you've done is make fun of something that wasn't doing you any harm and wanted only to give some cats some fun laughs" is completely off the mark. Trance - really good thriller by Danny Boyle. Excellently shot with some great twists and turns which and almost plays like an exploitation movie at times. A shame it didn't do better at the box office as I'd love to see Boyle tackle more films like this. Side Effects - Excellent film. Starts off as expected but turns into an almost Hitchcockian thriller with shades of exploitation and made-for-tv movies (in a good way). I can't remember the last time a film took me by surprise in this way and kept me as engaged and enthralled throughout the entire duration. Highly recommended. |
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I completely agree with you about Man of Steel – I loved the bits with Kevin Costner but the action sequences (which comprised the entire third act) were too fast, loud and obviously animated so they became boring. (How many thousands of people would have died in that immense destruction?!) As for A Good Day to Day Hard, I haven't seen it, but the trailers didn't do particularly good job of selling it and this video will mean much more to you than me, picking up on many of the points you raised.
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