Category Archives: Movies

Feb 03 2024
Leave a comment
Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, United States

The Revenant (2015).

The outrageous pointlessness of The Revenant (2015) annoyed me the most.

It borders on both the bathetic and pathetic, a twin cannon of self-imposed misery propped up with needless sequence shots for the sake of aping some Cobacabana club. But here the aesthetic is redundant as the story is a nothing matter and there are no characters for the duration. A bear makes an appearance and it’s the most colourful personality.

Such a terrible movie. It’s cold out there and the wilderness is cruel – we get it. 

Tagged , , , ,
Feb 02 2024
Leave a comment
Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

Fair Play (2023).

Protagonists you wish to hook in the face here … with Gazza’s fishing rod. 

How relevant this is, a tiny coterie of tech geeks manipulating your usual stock-trading inverted universe. Always despised goblins like this, their nauseating patter and lack of manners. But that’s another wee spiel.

As vexing as the encroaching-upon-a-sledge-hammer set-up it is, we do have here depicted a relatable workplace malice, and nights out that segue to a tumbleweed on a Monday morning.  

The shagging scenes were embarrassing to watch. I’ve never seen such painful, smug foreplay and failed pumping in a movie. It would have been marvelous if Mr. Blobby stomped in and jizzed on the pair. 

Anyway, this aside, it was mostly splendid and for long periods it was 86% fully intriguing, a throwback thriller with thoroughly loathsome characters. 

Michael Douglas should have been in it.

And the impeccable Eddie Marsan features. He’s one of the best working today, ever since Paul Bettany fed him a butty in Gangster No.1 (1999).

Tagged , , , ,
Jan 22 2024
Leave a comment
Art, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).

Billed as Gary Oldman and some apes, this mostly entails having to watch the insufferable Jason Clarke and his begging antics at the feet of simians. It’s an okay movie despite this monumental bore of an actor.

I turned it off at 64 minutes. I couldn’t see it getting any better and frustration was starting to kick in.

The hairy fellows aren’t much different from denizens of certain areas of Edinburgh. The difference here is that the chimps can speak properly. 

Tagged , , ,
Jan 15 2024
Leave a comment
Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Belfast (2021).

What a talented director this lad can be. 

I didn’t know he was from Belfast and always assumed he was born in the Old Vic, such are the depths of his Shakespeare. 

Decent movie. Nothing in it annoyed me.

It wasn’t rubbish. And that’s all that matters. 

Tagged , , , , ,
Jan 14 2024
Leave a comment
Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, United States

Tom Wilkinson was the best.

In almost everything, he quietly steals the show. No histrionics or chewing the scenery, but an impeccable talent to convince in every role – mob boss, downtrodden miner, creepy CIA handler. I suppose that’s acting. He excelled at projecting an inscrutable authority, rarely perturbed, but you can see that he’s seething.

Go-to performance, a remarkable gig in Todd Field’s quite brilliant In the Bedroom (2000):

Tagged , , , ,
Jan 08 2024
Leave a comment
Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Technology

Annihilation (2018).

I spent most of this intriguing movie wondering at what point the twist was going to occur or when the deus ex machina would reveal it all to be the figment of the protagonist’s imagination. It put me off fully enjoying the thrills as I was permanently searching for the clues. Maybe it would have worked better as just sheer hokum but there’s plenty of that around.

The bickering between the leads is tedious but the script needs to reach its finale, so you have to endure these non-characters argue away. But this aside, you’re not quite sure what’s going on and the momentum helps you stay involved.

Decent action with some thought-provoking ideas.

Tagged , , , , ,
Jan 01 2024
Leave a comment
Art, Britain, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Technology, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

FairyTale: A True Story (1997).

Harvey Keitel and Peter O’Toole in the same movie piqued my interest, and it’s all innocent and charming enough, the fairies a countryside escapism from the horrors of late modernity, WWI ruining the illusion for everyone.

It should be far more engrossing but it isn’t and just ends up being awfully British – rudimentary camerawork, score from a Sunday church service, barely competent actors who’ve littered a hundred other mediocre British films.  

Why I’m being so harsh on such a nothing movie aimed at kids I don’t know. 

That’s enough for today. 

Tagged , , , ,
Dec 30 2023
Leave a comment
Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Get Carter (2000).

Sometimes in life you watch a movie and as you partake in this activity, you ask: “Why does this film exist? Why am I watching this?”

And that’s Get Carter (2000), the stinky remake of the fabled classic. 

I know folk on the dole who could make a better film, merely by instinct.

Tagged , , ,
Dec 18 2023
Leave a comment
Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

The Dead Zone (1983).

A haunting role from Christopher Walken, and just before he became a pop culture icon in addition to actor. You just feel sorry for him in this movie, with the foreboding he is totally doomed, such is the tension and supreme creepiness of the atmosphere. And for a David Cronenberg picture, it’s relatively tame, with none of the visceral gore and unsavoury preoccupation with flesh (mostly rotting) that characterises his earlier work.

The always captivating Herbert Lom shines, and Martin Sheen is a Grade A sleaze. 

Decent.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Dec 12 2023
Leave a comment
Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Leave the World Behind (2023). Everything wrong with cinema.

This had auguries of pish for me. 

I’m sick to near-death of the zeitgeist high-concept apocalyptic horror/domestic drama crossover, the current trend kicking about the last few years consisting of 20-odd stinkers from the bargain bin somehow featuring proven talent. 

Ethan lets strangers into his home and they couldn’t act more dodgy. There is no reason to grant them entry but I suppose the plot has to happen. I turned it off after this. I’m not watching another one of these obvious metaphorical home invasion yarns again. 

I looked through the plot summary after the 16-minute viewing of torture. Was that it? Is this how easy it is to get a shite script made?

Just a horrible wee pointless film and everyone involved should be ashamed. 

My film pitch: a financially burdened middle-class family move into an Anderson shelter due to financial woes, and externally there is a civil war kicking off, but the youngest child isn’t interested as he/she/them/it is too engulfed in the pleasures of the mobile phone. Some super-smart badgers invade the garden and try and take over the realm.

^Put a ‘star’ in that and it would be made.

Tagged , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →