Oct 20 2024
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024).

For some reason I cannot and do not wish to fathom, a Mad Max ‘Easter egg’ appeared in the revolting Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) and it almost sullied my appreciation for anything Mad Max or even the name Max. Almost. 

Furiosa (2024), a prequel set decades prior to the magisterial Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), thankfully does not feature a Deadpool or a Wolverine. Cunts.

Anyway, what was this movie like, you may enquire?

I was expecting a frenzied shitload of George Miller mental action which is always of the most inventive and considered (visually) kind, and he delivered. I was never in any doubt. It’s a feast for the eyes and ears, the stunt work once again mesmerising. And it actually has a deep storyline and characters for this kind of preposterous fare.

I hear it flopped at the box office. 

Audiences are stupid. 

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Oct 19 2024
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Art, Building, Crime, Monarchy, Royal Family, Technology, Television, TV series, United Kingdom

I, Claudius. I suppose it was seminal once.

Brian Blessed sans the beard and his general all-round formulaic Brian Blessedness was at least a shock. We also have shite costumes and dodgy wigs chucked into this insipid, very British mix/mess.

It’s essential history and for the time, I assume, it was event television. But bloody hell it isn’t half fucking boring. I couldn’t get beyond the embarrassing plastic sets and that did it for me. Did they shoot this in a prison? I had to pull the plug for I couldn’t suspend my disbelief.

The likes of Lars von Trier needn’t bother with an art department because that’s his obvious (oh so provocative!) intention; here, the skullduggery had the appearance of a school play. 

I’m sure it’s captivating but no thanks, I have a toga from a fancy dress shop I need to attend to. 

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Oct 17 2024
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Back to the Future Part III (1990) teaser madness. 

Ah, yes. It’s 1989 and Back to the Future Part II has ended on a cliffhanger and it’s a ‘To Be Concluded’. But nah, here’s a preview at the end credits to the final installment which is on its way very soon. Audacious. 

A first for cinema? 

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Oct 14 2024
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Stillwater (2021).

It’s a promising premise that gradually feels like it’s segueing into gritty Euro thriller territory, a mature version of Taken (2008), but sadly doesn’t. We have a barely interesting character study by the end and the decisions the lad makes don’t appear logical (or believable).

I almost wished it to descend into mindless bone-crunching mayhem. Just for the ‘lolz’.

It was not meant to be.

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Oct 10 2024
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) is quality.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) is a severely underappreciated movie.

It is dark, gritty, and violent; I’m shocked it was released as a PG-13. I find it highly amusing that they are tutored by this fuck-off rat with a Japanese accent. It’s a demonstration of respecting your elders.

The movie perfectly captures how bad New York was during that H. W. Bush era, a post-Reagan hangover from hell with crack epidemics, failed economics, and generally being surrounded by cunts. The picture, incredibly, almost approaches Scorsese in this regard.

And the music is worthy of a wank.

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Oct 08 2024
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies

The Killer (2024). John Woo remakes his own movie.

John Woo in his Hong Kong heyday made the most insane actioners of his time, movies that defied categorisation to the extent that he created a new genre. His pictures were somehow operatic and you could absorb real feeling from them. That and the mayhem, the bullets, the exploding heads, the carnage which seemed to have been concocted by Hannibal (psychiatrist, not conqueror of the Alps).

He ventured into the States and helmed the barking Face/Off (1997) and sadly never topped that, but how could he? 

Now we’ve got a remake, for whatever reason, of one of his indelible HK masterworks. 

It was depressing in its pointlessness, visually as dull as these things come. The scenes are shot and edited just like I would expect from your standard hacks for hire. Not a shred of artistic imprint was on this vacuous yarn. I didn’t think it could get any worse but then Eric Cantona turns up, looking away with the fairies and perplexed, which I found most perplexing. Fabulously talented football player. But he has the acting talent of a Wookie interviewing for the Third Reich.

John Woo, you just disappointed me, pal. 

Shite. 

Watch this instead:

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Oct 07 2024
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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Under Paris (2024).

Movies concerning sharks are usually a bit of fun, aren’t they? 

The material will either be masterpiece-level cinema (Quint monologues), or guiltily enjoyable schlock (genius sharks swimming backwards). Actually, there is no middle ground in what is after all a genre about sharks.

And this frightfest from the deep? 

Brainy people acting most stupidly through their unchecked arrogance, the treat their comeuppance. 

I jettisoned the subtitles for the dubbing, just so it would be that wee bit more amusing. It was rubbish but funny, even if the premise trumped the end result. 

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Oct 05 2024
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Art, Cinema, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Elizabethtown (2005). This was purgatory in the cinematic form.

Hated this, absolutely with unbridled passion hated it. 

It’s about a shoe designer (of all professions to put in movie) who fouls up. There’s lots of quirky scenes and grating use of obvious songs the director plonks on top of them. It’s Jerry Maguire-lite – very lite. It’s for some reason beyond my comprehension rammed with solid acting talent, but they all phone it in.

Orlando Bloom is the big cheese and not only can he not act, he can’t even summon the internal forces to compose a voice-over without sounding like a wee fanny. He has got to be the worst thespian that has ever been shat onto celluloid, and I’m happy that I don’t have to see him these days on those posters you get on the side of buses. I’ve seen junkies with sob stories and they are more convincing than Orlando Bloom.

The director’s infuriating obsession with a character saying something offbeat and then cutting to blank stares of a group of extras – this was the worst stylistic choice in a movie rammed with suffocating whims. 

I didn’t buy a single moment of this joke of a film which has BIG THEMES but treats them with the facile delicacy of a flick featuring Orlando Bloom. 

It’s even worse than Garden State (2004), and Bloom makes Zach Braff look like that movie’s Marlon Brando 2.0.

Sourced this from IMDB as I couldn’t be arsed typing it:

‘At the end, Drew’s voiceover says, “The motto of the British Special Service Airforce is ‘those who risk, win’.” The unit is actually called the “Special Air Service”, it is a special forces unit and not an air force at all, and the motto is “Who Dares Wins”.’

That defines the movie for me. The cunts who made it can’t even get their facts right.

Hated this film so much.

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Oct 03 2024
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Troy (2004). So bad.

This is sadly pathetic when you consider the material at your disposal and all the talent on display.

The grinning Brian Cox is the only thesp in it who seems to be aware that he’s starring in a godawful pile of hokum. And he steals the movie.

The rest: crappy cinematography, derivative battles and sword fights, Orlando Bloom once gain displaying his inability to act a lick. What else? James Horner utilising the same score he’s used in a hundred other films (maybe I’m exaggerating), and dialogue so cringe you’d think Ed Wood Jr. was on scriptwriting duties. 

A motion picture which is balls. But it has a certain appeal in that it’s a lesson in how to make proper drivel.

Oct 01 2024
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Ferrari (2023). A painful experience.

This vexed me from the start with the black-and-white archive footage and grating music. Thousands of films do this for exposition and it’s rarely with effect.

It’s just so boring. It’s a safe, BORING movie about cars. Such an extraordinary director. The subject matter, boringly, appears to have dictated everything in this. Cars. Engines. How fascinating …. I cannot relay a single memorable image or sequence from this sad film. Which is quite sad.

Show me something stylish, make a moment lasting, give me the MANN TREATMENT. Nah, this was your biopic about a car-person featuring the most wooden actor ever to feature in a Star Wars movie. And on that topic, those rancid sequel flicks will hopefully be consigned to the garage bin.

I turned this off after 57 minutes.

I was fuming at how silly and crap this movie was. 

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