It’s a grim milieu but not without its charms. The Athens of the North and all that.
Newkirkgate, Leith.
Author Archives: Ben Gould
This bloke was/is both Han and Indy. Which is some statement.
Ford created the art of ‘non-acting acting’. In everything he’s effortless. Everything is effortless. He’s incapable of a bad performance. Even when he’s in a shitter he’s still interesting, … even if he doesn’t look interested.
A self-effacing lad, a proper hero. He apparently even lives on a ranch and flies planes. He probably built his own house because he can do anything.
Jesus was a carpenter. And so is Harrison Ford.
Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood. Meh ….
Certainly ambitious in conception, but it all feels so rehashed and by the numbers, kind of half-baked and jaded by its own pretensions.
There are moments when you think it’s finally going to throw off the shackles and descend into proper depravity and capture the macabre, but it never does, like it’s constrained by committee. And there’s not enough of a portrait of Oktoberfest or Munich or … Germany in general, and those times were wicked times.
I was expecting a Bavarian Red Wedding. It never happened. Plenty of beer, but not enough blood.
Oh well, the intention was there.
48 Hours (1982). The best.
This is just great, the original and best buddy cop flick. And the best casting, Nolte and Murphy with a rapport never equalled in this genre. This was peak Murphy, a time when he could do no wrong. The bit when he lights up the country and western bar is quite simply … awesome. Everything works, in fact. The carnage, the score, the story, the setting.
What else have I missed? Oh, James Remar. For once, you’ve got a bad guy who is actually scary and just slightly unhinged. He’s a very bad dude.
As an action comedy, it’s numero uno.
28 Weeks Later (2007) is rather scary.
It’s when Begbie goes zombie-Begbie and becomes a raging, snarling contagion, spreading the virus in the safe room in what is quite possibly the most terrifyingly claustrophobic sequence ever put on film.
And then immediately after this a certain Stringer Bell therefore decides to shoot them all.
It’s better than its precursor. Much better, and this is despite it getting a bit too silly towards the end. And I have no interest in the undead genre.
No Time To Die (2021) is utter rubbish. Don’t waste your time on it.
I didn’t think much of Casino Royale (2006), I’ve forgotten everything about Quantum of Solace (2008), couldn’t stand Skyfall (2012), and hated Spectre (2015) mainly because it somehow made boring the considerable talents of his preeminence Herr. Christoph Waltz. I don’t mind Daniel Craig as an actor but he’s nothing special. My main gripe against these silly movies, though, is that they are so in awe of Jason Bourne it’s embarrassing. They are incapable of being Bond and feel the need to ape the zeitgeist.
So, I suppose I came into No Time To Die (2021) with an open mind when I saw it yesterday with the usual alcopop smörgåsbord tucked under my cardigan.
My thoughts:
It’s so annoyingly crap. It dragged on and on and on, and I fell asleep for what I think was 30 minutes. The first hour was actually decent, Ana de Armas’ cameo easily the highlight. She injects so much unpredictable energy into proceedings that she makes the rest of the prosaic elements on display to be of no consequence. And jarringly, it feels like her vignette is from another movie; it stinks of a reshoot and a different writer hired a year after the first cut.
And the villains – all four of them – were a snore, one generic cardboard nonentity after another, with Waltz wasted yet again. A full saggy middle consists of all the players explaining the convolutions of the plot to the audience. And sadly, there is zero chemistry between Bond and the Léa Seydoux character; she’s a thoroughly talented actor but has more of a glacial appeal better suited to French arthouse cinema than a Bond movie. She looks decidedly uninterested throughout proceedings.
Even more vexing, the film has the desperation to resort to appropriating a song from one of the only few Bond movies worthy of a repeat viewing. The action is thrilling, but so what? If that’s what you judge a movie on then I can watch 50 other more captivating motion pictures, from vintage John Woo in his Hong Kong heyday to peak Paul Greengrass.
No Time To Die is tiresome and tedious and relentlessly pointless.
Brace yourself for the next shite adventure.
I wish I’d turned off The Village (2004).
I saw it in the cinema and thought it was brilliant! This is why we don’t go back.
This movie is so terrible that even at the 28-minute stage I was gasping for it to expire. A Council of Elders, ‘evil creatures’ lurking in the woods. It’s the most obvious and worst premise and metaphor ever, and so boring. The twist ending barely bothered me as much as the preceding nonsense leading up to it. I’ve read contemporary reviews lauding the film’s treatment of the Iraq War. Are these critics on drugs?
Speaking of which, I would have bolted from the entire 19th-century scheme like Gump on a combo of Red Bull, Monster, Relentless, and crystal meth.
“Those We Don’t Speak Of”? I’d like to never again speak of this movie.
Pish.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 