Tag Archives: Film

Nov 18 2024
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Jackie Brown (1997).

It’s a cliché now to describe this film as “mature Tarantino” amidst his pop culture works with a compulsory cultural allusion every few seconds. It’s a restrained affair but not as great as the wise critics would make you think it is. The style works and the images are memorable, but it’s far too reliant on its music soundtrack.

De Niro pops up and does a sort of bumbling semi-Falstaff, the rest of the cast looking happy to be there. Michael Keaton plays an ATF agent called Ray Nicolette, and reprises the role in Out of Sight (1998). This harbinger of what cinemas are awash with today – multiverse overkill – is my predominant takeaway from the movie.

It’s okay, but feels forced, for long stretches simply dull, and I can’t recall a single line of dialogue. 

But it’s not shite. 

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Nov 14 2024
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies

From Russia with Love (1963).

For sheer entertainment alone this is a 5/5 but it’s suffused with added value because of its influence on its 007 progeny. More so than Dr. No (1962), this is the prototypical Bond, all the ingredients coalescing but not at the expense of plot or pacing. It’s a Bond 101, and few subsequent entries have been up to scratch.

Stunning vistas, flawlessly executed set pieces, it’s at its core a glorious spy thriller with intentional, which always helps when the jokes are not by accident, comedic elements that aren’t too outlandish. Even a scene as basic as Bond checking into a hotel and casually scouring the room for listening devices somehow dazzles.

And Lotte Lenya whacks Robert Shaw in the stomach with a knuckleduster.

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Nov 11 2024
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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

The Intern (2015).

Another De Niro film from his comedy vault, the two-hour running time put me off, but Tarantino speaks fondly of the movie, so that sealed the deal. It’s terrible. Shame on you, QT.

It does have a wee something to say about ageism, but it’s barely even believable. And it’s another stomach-churning movie about American office culture, with its sycophantic, annoying-as-fuck employees who couldn’t be more boring and who live for the pleasure of working for boring cunts. 

And I was bored.

Hated it. 

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Nov 07 2024
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies

The Hitcher (1986).

The landscape offers a lot to work with, ripe vistas aplenty, but there’s no enduring image from the cinematography side of things. 

I was expecting tension and chills; this was mainly boring and unimaginative. Nothing seemed to be at stake despite all the bloodshed, and the lack of any dynamic between the driver and the demented hitchhiker is a letdown. I couldn’t locate a personality in anyone here in what in essence is a variation of the same violent road encounter occurring every 10 minutes.

The laziness of writing pisses me off, be this in a slimy thriller like we have here or a mega bucks operation. It’s not difficult to insert a few character traits and attempt to build depth but nah, apparently it’s too much of a Herculean task. 

Rutger Hauer could be a scary man, though. And what happened to C. Thomas Howell? 

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Nov 04 2024
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Rogue Agent (2022).

This was a low-key semi-thriller, a slow-burning affair that worked perfectly for a bit. For an entire 80 minutes, it was genuinely unpredictable and with a fleeting romance that convinced. Then it got boring and I was bored. 

Last 20 minutes were hard work. I wish I turned it off. 

Next.

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Nov 02 2024
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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

The Ugly Truth (2009).

It wasn’t my choice to watch this ugly tripe.

And I’ll never watch it again, or any movie featuring anyone involved in it.

Unfunny, painfully coarse to the level of beyond cringe, and just plain annoying.

If someone gave me a DVD of this, I’d use it as a weapon to assault them with.

Bye for now.

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Oct 30 2024
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Shot Caller (2017).

It’s Jaime Lannister with outrageous moustache in a leading role, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau a world away from Westeros in this brutal crime drama. 

I do like a gritty thriller with a bare-bones clinical style, no faffing around. The opening voice-over is nauseating and sounds like it was written by Rocky Balboa during his … Rocky Balboa (2006) phase. But after this misstep, it got bloody good.

It shows you that anyone can end up in the slammer given unfortunate curve balls. A hellish urban landscape follows the frightful prison experience, the reality that you’re in it for life. The odds are stacked so high against this lad you just pray he makes it out alive.

It’s got its cliches aplenty but it doesn’t matter as it’s damn well put together. And the music had a bit of Nick Cave & Warren Ellis about it. 

Superb movie, proper carnage.

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Oct 28 2024
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

The Getaway (1972).

This movie is the Al Lettieri Show – the Sollozzo fella who was good with a knife. He dwarfs everyone else, and makes a bit of a mockery of them. A star vehicle that goes nowhere, with the worst actress you’ll ever see. I watched Love Story (1970) once and wished to string myself up.

The constant zoom shots and unnecessary cuts to insignificant items was breathtakingly amateurish. Pekinpah had no idea where to plonk his camera and no conception on how to even focus on a narrative connectivity between shots; accidentally crossing the line was his only defining characteristic. The most overrated director. The sound design is also horrible and the music is intrusive and contributes nothing.

The remake is somehow better. And that’s also a pile of shite.

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Oct 21 2024
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, United States

Vice (2018).

An hour of breezy climbing-the-ladder banter, researched kind of well but still replete with whopping inaccuracies, Vice (2018) holds in admiration its protagonist’s uncanny appreciation of the mechanisms of power. Perfectly decent performances and a freewheeling narrative structure lost my interest just when events should have made the content interesting. It got decidedly shite by the last throes and I had no choice but to turn the farce off once the director broke the fourth/fifth/sixth wall.

Perhaps there wasn’t much human substance there to document beyond 60 mins.

Belter of a trailer (and tune), though:

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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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