I think people forget how good Jim Carrey is.
Jim Carrey (The Mask, Dumb and Dumber and most recent Kick Ass 2) Carrey who is known for his comedy films gives a memorable performance in The Number 23. At times confusing the Number 23 doesn't disappoint.
audiences will see how versatile Carrey is, the movie has a dark chillin feel with a ending that no one saw coming.
The second season of Veep is a great lesson in how TV shows have to be allowed to find their feet.
I enjoyed the first season of Armando Iannucci's US-set counterpart to his hit UK political-comedy series The Thick Of It, but it wasn't quite the runaway success that I was hoping for. Some of the gags fell flat, and many of the characters didn't quite feel fully-formed, beyond a few basic character attributes and catchphrases.
But this second series shows a notable improvement, with each and every member of the ensemble cast feeling more comfortable in their character. And at the same time, there's a much more compelling ongoing storyline for Julia Louis-Dreyfus' long-suffering vice-president to get her teeth into.
It's notoriously difficult to pin down in a review exactly why comedies work, but I'll give it a go. Veep is funny not because of the situation (frustrated vice-president surrounded by scheming and/or inept staff) nor because of the storylines (politics can be pretty dull in and of itself, after all), but because of the characters, and the way those characters interact.
Louis-Dreyfus as the "veep", Selina Meyer, provides a central hub for all of these characters to rotate around. She herself is amusingly vain and cynical, silly without being stupid, and eminently likeable despite her flaws. She's surrounded by a staff that includes her fussy but loyal aide, Gary; her astute but uptight chief of staff, Amy; a bumbling director of communications, Mike; an incredibly cynical and machiavellian speechwriter, Dan; and a sharp-tongued and intimidating secretary, Sue.
While it took a while for the first season to establish all these character attributes, the second season is able to hit the ground running. It assumes you're familiar with the characters and situation from the start, and as a result it can have a lot more fun crafting its elaborate and intricately-plotted storylines.
Talking of which, the plots of these second-season episodes seem stronger than the first: they're a lot more like The Thick Of It in that quite a lot of things happen in quite a short space of time, and you have to pay close attention to follow exactly what is happening and to understand exactly why people are reacting in the way that they are to certain situations. There's also a very interesting larger overall plot involving Selina's chances of having a second shot at the presidency - and while I won't say how that plays out, it leaves things in a significantly different place for the start of season three.
But all of that plottiness makes the show sound like hard work, when it's really not. Veep's biggest laughs come from its broadest comedy moments, whether it's Selina's barely-concealed political ambitions threatening to poison her immediate working relationships, or her career teetering in the balance in the wake of her latest big gaffe or scandal.
While Julia Louis-Dreyfus is undoubtedly the show's greatest asset, though, it's the ensemble cast and the sharp writing that really brings it all together. This second season is well worth checking out and is a significant improvement on the first, so even if you've tried Veep before, it might be worth giving it another shot.
This tense movie starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong is a deep psychological thriller will confuse and twist your mind with its plot and how it portrays its characters. it has you questioning everyones motives and stories. Nicole Kidman is outstanding in this role as she is believable as an amnesiac, watching Kidman portraying such a struggling character is breathtaking. This is how you do a psychological thriller.
Before I Go To Sleep 2014
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes represents a new frontier in movie-making.
That might sound like a bold claim, but once you see what the filmmakers have managed to achieve in this gripping continuation of the recently-rebooted Planet of the Apes series, you'll understand exactly why I'm so confident in saying it. Because this film, more than any other that I've ever seen, harnesses the power of computer-generated imagery (or CGI for short) to create living, breathing characters that we can not only believe are genuinely interacting with their environment - and, crucially, with the rest of the film's cast - but in whom we can invest just as much emotion as we would with a human actor.
There have been films that have used CGI characters well before. The T-1000 in Terminator 2 was perhaps the first example of CGI being used to create an artificial stand-in for a human that didn't merely look like a pale imitation of the real thing. And Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies was a watershed moment in creating a fantasy character that you truly accepted as being present on-screen, in the same way as you would a human cast member.
Well, this is the next step.
Caesar - the chief of the ape tribe in this movie (who we saw grow into this role in the previous movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes) - is so convincingly-realised, through a combination of motion-capture technology using actor Andy Serkis and CGI artistry, that you don't ever even have that moment when you start to forget that he's a CGI character and accept him as part of the movie: instead, he's 100% real from the very beginning.
It's not just in the extremely high level of detail in his skin, his fur or even his lifelike, soulful eyes (although that's all part of it, and it's especially impressive in high-definition on Blu-Ray): it's in all of the subtle mannerisms, body language and posture that indicate that a person - or in this case, an animal - is the real thing rather than an artificial imitation. While some of the communication that takes place between the apes in this movie is verbal, a lot of it happens through sign language and body language, and this makes it all the more important that the filmmakers are able to pull off a convincing-feeling character who can convey as much through a glance or a shrug as he can through his voice.
Supporting characters realised through CGI are just as convincing: a hulking but gentle orangutan who serves as a moral conscience for the ape community is a brilliant character first and foremost - it's only after a while that you stop and consider what a massive technical achievement it represents too. And the antagonist within the apes - Kopa - is a wonderfully nasty creation who begins the film as a partly sympathetic character, but who descends into outright villainy by the end.
In terms of technical achievement, Avatar is perhaps the only recent movie that comes close to this level of sophistication - and even then, that movie was largely comprised of CGI alien characters in completely CGI alien environments, which is a lot easier to pull off than realistic-looking apes interacting with real-life actors in real-life environments, as we see here.
Despite the focus on the ape characters, the human cast is still important too. Jason Clarke plays a sympathetic sort who attempts to build bridges between the human and ape communities, while Gary Oldman plays an embattled human leader who struggles to deal with the escalating crisis as tensions build between the two factions. Oldman in particular gets one or two scenes that remind you what a great actor he is, so it's a little disappointing that he only really plays a supporting role in this film.
All of these solid performances (both CGI and real) would be worth nothing, however, if the story wasn't up to snuff. Luckily, it is, with director Matt Reeves showing an assured confidence as he gradually ratchets up the tension over the course of the first half of the movie. After a great credits-sequence montage that efficiently sets up an important part of the film's concept - that a virus has wiped out most of the world's human population - we're thrown ahead ten years, into a dystopian future in which power shortages and natural wastage mean that very little works properly, and disharmony between humans and apes poses a lurking threat in the background.
By gradually having the ape and human communities become closer over the first half of the movie - while also sowing seeds of mistrust through rogue players in both camps - Reeves brings things up to an almost unbearably-tense point before letting the action explode onto the screen. And when it comes, it's as intense and violent as you'd expect.
There are countless powerful images here, but perhaps none is more captivating than the sight of a giant army of apes on horseback, toting man-made automatic weapons, threatening to lay siege to the handful of humans that are still holding out in San Francisco. And shortly after that, a bravura battle scene simply demands that you sit up and take notice - including one incredibly ambitious unbroken shot that shows us a point-of-view scene from the turret of a human-operated tank that gets attacked and taken over by the apes.
But as the film rolls around to its grand conclusion, the violence and chaos begins to recede and take a backseat again, and Reeves returns to the heart of his story: the characters, and a climactic face-off between Caesar and Kopa that distills the essence of the film into a single scene. Without spoiling things, it encapsulates everything that Reeves has managed to do with the movie: using a group of CGI apes to make a very human statement about morality and the value of life, but also acknowledging the inevitability of conflict and - sometimes - the necessity of war, death and sacrifice.
It's heady stuff for an effects-driven blockbuster, but that just goes to show how ambitious and mould-breaking Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is.
This heartwarming film is a one that passed me by when it was first released. It gives a first hand account of the experience of welsh coal miners during the long and bitter strike of 1984 and of the stereotypes and prejudices that require breaking down to enable these two disparate and marginalised groups to appreciate their shared experience of oppression. There is evidence of enormous courage and humanity on both sides at the same time obvious bitterness and hostility from some of the mining community who are fearful of the newly present AIDS epidemic.
This is a strong cast of actors, with Bill Nighly outstanding as the leader of one of the mens Unions and Imelda Stauntan as one of the Welsh mining activists. The setting of the Welsh village and its community hall - the sheer deprivation, isolation and dependancy of the welsh villagers is extremely is extremely well demonstrated, as is the variation of this to the gay london scene as experienced by the visiting mining activists as part of their collection of funds.Although hilarious in parts it also is extremely poignant. Not many films educate, make me laugh and make me cry at the same time. This is special and well worth a couple of hours of your time.
Verdict
I laughed, I cried, I pondered and I loved it!
This series is a fantastic example of Nritish television drama. It is a show filled with plot twists that keep you ready at all times. I love it!
This morally gripping, yet acidic story is about rotten journalism and the public's insatiable appetite for it. I personally have never been keen on the media and found it easy to blame the press for its portraits of self-destructing celebrities, philandering footballers, corrupt politicians or bragging serial killers, but who loves those stories? We the public do.
Charles Tatum, played by the charismatic and diverse Hollywood icon that is Kirk Douglas in his most savage and merciless role, is a highly skilled, flamboyant, super-confident and intelligent, hotshot city reporter with a drinking problem who's been fired by almost a dozen newspapers for his unscrupulous conduct that includes lechery, slander and boozing. We find him broke and virtually unhirable. The fiercely ambitious, self-centred, wisecracking and now down-on-his-luck newspaperman somehow manages to con his way into a job at a local paper of little consequence, in the backwater town of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Resentfully stagnating for a year without any pressing news, the break he's been waiting for finally comes. Dispatched to a remote town to cover a rattlesnake competition, he stops in a desert hamlet and learns that the owner of the trading post has been trapped in an abandoned silver mine by a cave-in. On meeting the miner, Leo Minosa, Tatum smells an opportunity to return to the Big Time. In his bald-faced connivance with the venal local sheriff and Leo's trampish, disillusioned young wife Lorraine - played to perfection by Jan Sterling - Tatum monopolises and capitalises upon disaster. His promotional savvy and ability to understand the human psyche, and all its desires enables him to turn the miner's plight into a national news event, attracting thousands of onlookers, newsreel cameramen, radio commentators and sideshow hucksters who have arrived to exploit the gawkers; hot dog stands, cotton candy vendors and even a merry-go-round. Tatum, pyramids and prolongs what seems like a simple caving disaster ordeal into a nationally sensational tragedy by cooking up a cockamamie scheme and keeping it on the front pages of the papers for as long as he possibly can. He nails down possession of the story, totally and frighteningly committed on spinning it out for as long as he can, and milk it for all the money and fame he can get, therefore controlling his own destiny by getting his old job back in New York.
Instead of blaming Charles Tatum who ultimately masterminds a media circus, you end up getting angry at the sightseers who pay a few cents admission to learn more about the victim trapped at the bottom of a mine shaft. You feel you're at an amusement park except only this time, a man's life is at stake and yet it makes little difference to the hoards of people gathered. All of the callousness and cheapness of people as they swarm like locusts around the entrance of the cavern in which Leo is trapped provides an acute realism and truth that is rare to find in 50s cinema anywhere in the world. We see first-hand, the ice-cold commercialism and revolting circus atmosphere created outside the cavern that was once a desolate outpost in the middle of nowhere, in which crowds have gathered to watch a slow race with death.
Through the director, Billy Wilder's genius, we are shown in no uncertain terms how infectious and corrupting sensationalised news can be. Barely anyone seen in the film is immune from the personal degradation of this carnival and it is because of this surrounding that Tatum appears not to be as bad as he is. Lorraine, the victim's wife initially eager to leave Leo and the struggling business has a dramatic change of heart once Tatum wakes her up to the prospects of experiencing a financial windfall from the thousands of tourists that are about to flock to witness the rescue attempt. A young, impressionable photographer at the local paper slowly loses his idealism as he follows Tatum's lead and starts to dream of striking it big himself. Then there's the shifty sheriff, calculating the publicity value to his forthcoming election campaign.
Ace in the Hole is an unsentimental and uncompromising piece of brilliance now rightly considered a masterpiece that was way ahead of its time. It wasn't a success on its initial release in 1951. Way back when it was made, you could imagine the furore it caused amongst the press who would certainly have accused the film of distorting journalistic practices. In fact you could also understand why the film did so poorly at the box office since it was probably viewed with some disdain amongst the institutions of power and even the audience who are all seen as complicit in determining the fate of Leo.
Some sixty years later, when countless newspapers and magazines compete to come up with the cattiest buzz terms and giddily celebrate the demise of celebrity relationships for buffo bucks, using as we now know, totally immoral and often illegal methods to gain their scoops, Ace in the Hole is even more relevant than ever and has lost none of its grip and power. It would be hard to imagine anyone in the press not recognising their own hunger for sensation. Having said that, the same could be said about the public. This is a bitter, sordid, trenchant and cynical drama that sets a corrupt newspaperman against a grisly panorama of mob morbidity. The legendary Billy Wilder does a spectacular job of creating a totally plausible vision of the monstrous vulgarity of mob behaviour influenced by a seemingly small accident that becomes a bizarre national catastrophe.
Kirk Douglas is at his most uningratiatingly forceful and immoral throughout the entire film and has this ability to curl his face into scorn and bitterness as Tatum. Never has the saying "Like father, like son" made so much sense than in the case of Douglas's performance here in comparison to his his son, Michael's acting as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. There's a great deal of resemblance in their characters and I don't just mean in their appearance. They're worth watching back to back. Kirk Douglas's Tatum takes charge with such confidence you believe he can get away with it. He's a self-loathing guy who just won't bend and this is put into brilliant contrast when Tatum who controls access to the rescue, regularly goes down the mine to visit Leo. Their amiable conversations and Leo's dependence on Tatum who has ingratiated himself as his true friend makes you hope that everything will be fine and humanity will prevail; that Tatum will take pity on Leo's plight and prolonged suffering. Alas Tatum's character is so focused, energetic and strong it's almost scary. Tatum drives relentlessly toward his goal of money and fame. You get a scary feeling every time Tatum appears on screen and this quality makes Ace in the Hole a colossal powerhouse of a film. It would have been easier to show Tatum share our sympathy for the pathetic Leo. It's not that he is completely nasty, in fact he's on a parabola in that direction but wants it to intersect with the moment of his own greatest fame. He truly believes in his own invincibility. Tatum appears to be a tarnished hero whose flaws outweigh his talents. You feel he is on his way down the ladder and only when he hits real rock bottom, will he find redemption and salvation but at what cost?
The dialogue throughout Ace in the Hole is razor sharp and amongst the best ever committed to film. One such example of this is when Lorraine is ordered to attend a prayer service for her husband Leo by Tatum and she sneers, "I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons." Another perfectly timed punch of a line is delivered early on by Tatum which sums him up brilliantly as he barks "I can handle the big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog." To again emphasise that Tatum's charm, Lorraine, realising his crafty scheme and knowing full well that she will prosper from it says to him half admiringly "I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you, you're twenty minutes."
This is a single-mindedly economical film with every shot serving its purpose perfectly, without any exposition. Everything becomes crystal clear like a Polaroid photo as it exposes itself almost instantly. Every shot speaks for itself. Charles B Lang shot the film in a stark, tabloid black-and-white. The interior darkness is contrasted with the blinding desert light to perfection. We see Leo in the darkness and we can't help but feel sorry for him. He's probably the only decent human being in this bleak film other than his doctor. It's also in the back of your mind that whilst he's down in the cave, he has no idea what is going on in the world above, as he remains stuck in the helpless hell of his situation and location. We watch as his human spirit becomes squashed for societal-weary gravitas, hoping and praying that his heart-felt conversations with Tatum will leave the latter changing his ways or that Tatum's protracted scam will pay off and Leo will be rescued. Yet you sense from the start that as long as the scheme is played out, Leo isn't going to be saved, especially when the reprehensible Tatum uses Leo's spiritual panic as an entertainment. He may be figuratively digging Leo's grave. Spectators ogle and compete for on-air time - their 60 seconds of fame -campaign promises are made, deals are brokered, the circus comes to town and prices skyrocket.
Ace in the Hole refuses to give its audience an easy point of sympathetic identification and in many ways reminds me of another 50s tabloid masterpiece starring Douglas's dear friend and contemporary, Burt Lancaster, though the settings are far apart. In addition Ace in the Hole somehow offers greater hope because Tatum is at close proximity to his subject unlike Lancaster's J.J. Hunsecker who is completely out of touch with his audience's reality. Wilder brilliantly implicates this small town community in Leo's predicament. Ultimately the film's genius also lies in the metaphoric impact the pressure outside the cave has on the inside; as the immorality escalates, Leo inches closer to death. And as the drill moves in on the man, its incessant sound serves to punish the people who've deliberately prolonged his suffering. "Why shouldn't we get something out of it," says someone at one point. This is the film's mantra of greed. It serves as a diatribe against all that is worst in human nature. Some have found the ending to go astray in comeuppance time but it doesn't really diminish the film in any way. Ace in the Hole questions the very nature of human interest stories and the twisted relationship between the media and its public.
Superhero movies as we know them today owe a lot to Bryan Singer's original X-Men movie, released way back in 2000. By eliminating the camper elements of previous superhero films in favour of sci-fi seriousness, and by toning down the garish colours and silly outfits into something more grounded and functional, Singer inadvertently set a template that would be successfully followed by superhero filmmakers for years to come.
But recent movies in the X-Men series have faltered slightly. When Singer was replaced by Brett Ratner on X-Men 3, several creative decisions were made that would inflict long-term harm on the franchise (including killing off more than one well-loved character, and pushing others into places where they were difficult to use effectively again). And a mediocre pair of Wolverine-focused films didn't help things.
However, things started looking up in 2011 when Matthew Vaughn directed X-Men: First Class, a reboot of sorts with a brand new young cast, with a story that showed how Professor X - the leader of the superhero group - began to put his team together in the 1960s. And that film led to this one: Days of Future Past - or DOFP for short - an epic adventure that combines elements of all three of the previous six X-Men and Wolverine movies and mixes them into a glorious cocktail that both celebrates the past successes of the franchise and sets a new direction for subsequent X-Men movies to follow.
By setting part of its time-travelling story in a dystopian alternate future and part of it in a more realistic past (the 1970s to be exact), DOFP is able to combine the older, original cast - featuring such luminaries as Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman - with the younger crew, which includes hot current stars like Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence. The result is one of the most impressive ensembles ever to feature in any film - let alone a superhero film - and Singer ensures that his epic, emotional and high-stakes story does them justice.
Because this is a film that is highly dramatic throughout: from a grim prologue that shows just how dangerous this mutant-hating future can be (with mutants hunted down and executed by merciless, terrifying shape-shifting robots), through a storyline that deals with the emotional fallout of First Class (including a dejected and drug-addicted young professor X) all the way through to the gripping final face-off involving Fassbender's Magneto, Lawrence's Mystique and Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask (the guy who was responsible for inventing all those mutant-killing robots in the first place), you'll be on the edge of your seat.
And the special effects are a match for the performances. We're growing increasingly used to these superhero films being able to show us anything we can imagine, so the test of a good one is often in just how imaginative the director can be. And whether it's relatively subtle effects (like the spatially-disorienting portals that can be created by one young mutant to confuse his enemies) or big setpieces (like Magneto's climactic attack in which he picks up an entire stadium and drops it in the middle of Washington), the film dazzles.
Perhaps the most impressive moment, though, is the scene in which a young Magneto rescues a mutant called Quicksilver from imprisonment. Quicksilver's power is super-speed, and the sequence in which we see the world from his perspective - with everything moving in extreme slow motion, free for him to manipulate and navigate at will - is a mini-masterpiece that's at once beautiful, imaginative, clever, funny and original: the film in a nutshell, basically. My only complaint is that Quicksilver is in the movie for far too short a time, as I could watch an entire movie about that guy.
With an amazing cast, some fantastic action and drama, and a compelling storyline, this is the best X-Men movie since at least X-Men 2 (and possibly ever). It gets grim in places - there's death and destruction throughout, even for fairly well-established characters - but it's worth hanging in there until the end to see how Singer pulls things back from the brink, setting the stage for a bolder, brighter future for the franchise (and retroactively fixing a lot of problems from past movies into the bargain).
If you're an X-Men fan, this is a real treat - and if you're someone who has been turned off by the series' recent downturn in quality, then you'll be delighted to see that this is a genuine return to form.
Steven Seagal stars as Jack Cole, an LA cop investigating the work of a serial killer known as The Family Man. If you were thinking though that this sounds far too much like a conventional Hollywood thriller for the likes of Seagal, then you would be right. Whilst Jack Cole is a cop, he has a murky past and yes, you know the rest - he used to be in the military before being recruited into the CIA. And if you were wondering where the title of the film came from, it refers to our hero - "there'd be nothing but jungle, then a glimmer, then you'd be dead!"
There are a number of weaknesses with this film; the story for a start. To say that it is thin would be an understatement. The finale too will leave you feeling a little disappointed. However, despite these things it is definitely worth a watch. There is a scene in a restaurant that shows Seagal at his very best and it is certainly equal to, if not better than, any other scene in any of his films. The Glimmer Man also benefits from a decent supporting cast who do their best with a limited script. Keenan Ivory Wayans (Scary Movie) plays Seagal's partner and adds a little comic relief as well as some action of his own (it will make you wonder why he hasn't appeared in more films?). Brian Cox (The Bourne Identity, Troy) and Bob Gunton (Argo, The Shawshank Redemption) also add weight.
If you are a fan of the big man's early films, and like me grew up watching them, there will have come a time when you realised that he was never going to make a decent film ever again. We wished it wasn't true, but accepting it can be something of a liberating experience. Where I used to get really angry at the fact that he couldn't be bothered to dub his own voice in the majority of his straight to DVD offerings, now I am calm. I simply don't watch them. Instead, I sit back and enjoy the glory days. In fact 8 of his first 9 films are well worth watching: Nico - Above the Law (1988), Hard to Kill (1990), Marked for Death (1990), Out for Justice (1991), Under Siege (1992), Under Siege 2 (1995), Executive Decision (1996) and The Glimmer Man (1996). Do yourself a big favour and stop there (although to be fair, Exit Wounds (2001) is passable). The only film to avoid during his 'early period' is On Deadly Ground (1994).
In summary, The Glimmer Man has all of the things that you would expect: lots of action, a Buddhist quote or two, some more action and Seagal wearing a silly coat. It is definitely worth watching and at only 91 minutes in length things keep ticking along nicely. Seagal is also meaner, and certainly a lot leaner than we have come to expect in recent years. Fundamentally, The Glimmer Man is a fairly routine action film. However, it is the fact that Seagal has seemingly been unable to do routine very well of late that makes this one a little more rewarding than it would perhaps have been otherwise.
Family Guy season 14 was 1 of the best DVDs I've seen in years, especially the episode entitled: Life of Brian, not only did it bring a tear to everyone's eyes but it also brought a sense of mystery due to him being killed off for only 3 episodes and introducing Vinny, This is a best buy especially from Amazon because of its low prices, So thanks to Amazon for this wonderful treasure of gold :-)
All About the Family!! :-)
Of all the films that I have ever seen, 'Spirited Away' is one of the ones that has touched me most deeply. A beautiful, strange and beguiling animated film from Japan's famous Studio Ghibli, its coming-of-age story deftly mixes fantasy and reality to create an adventure that is partly an allegory for a child entering the scary world of being an adult, and partly a celebration of youthful naivety and imagination in the face of grown-up dullness. Filled with memorable and original characters, it's a film that is guaranteed to stay in your mind forever, even after you've only watched it once.
To explain how it has touched me so deeply probably means revealing some of my personal history with the film. I was lucky enough to first see 'Spirited Away' at an advance cinema screening in the UK shortly before its release here in 2003, and as a result I didn't know anything about it beforehand. But as soon as I watched it, I immediately knew it was something special. I had never even seen a Studio Ghibli film before this one, so the wildly imaginative and exotic, resolutely un-western creations of legendary Ghibli writer and director Hayao Miyazaki felt fresh and new to me in the same way as landmark modern animations like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?', 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Toy Story' felt in their day.
After seeing the film at the cinema, I immediately sought out the DVD (at that time having to import a copy, well before a UK version was available) and watched the film to death, drinking in the glorious animation and finding new subtleties and layers in the story each time I watched it. But it wasn't until later that I truly fell in love with 'Spirited Away': on a difficult night when, suffering from insomnia and nervousness after a long evening of working, and unable to switch my mind off, I decided to sit down at 3am and try to calm myself by losing myself in the world of 'Spirited Away'.
And I was transported.
The expansive world created by Miyazaki for 'Spirited Away' has its inception in the simple journey taken by a young girl, Sen, to her new home with her parents. However, when the family stop their car and discover a strange old abandoned theme park, Sen begins to be drawn into a magical world that lies just beneath the surface of her own - and as she gets sucked further into it (her parents being mysteriously transformed into pigs at this point), she discovers an entire society of strange creatures that live and work in a magical parallel universe.
But like 'Alice in Wonderland' - which surely must have been an inspiration for this story - the world of 'Spirited Away' is not all pleasant and kind. Sen is forced to work for her living in a local bath-house that is visited by a host of weird gods and monsters, all of which are magical and strange, but some of which have their own sinister agendas and secrets. Unlike many childrens' films, 'Spirited Away' is not afraid to challenge childrens' views about the world: but although the film is sometimes scary and often ambiguous, all of its darker and creepier moments inevitably lead Sen to the eventual discovery of a profound truth or a greater understanding of life, empowering her by encouraging self-education and empathy.
When it comes to filmmaking, there's a lot of talk of 'character arcs' as an important aspect of every story - which usually means a character going from point A to point B in their life, and learning something or changing somehow on the way. But not many movies give you the sense of truly going on a journey with the lead character in the way that 'Spirited Away' does. Sen truly grows into a different character by the end of this film, and unlike many lesser movies, you are truly made to feel that (sometimes difficult) transition every step of the way.
And as I sat there in the middle of the night, going on this journey of self-discovery and edification with Sen (culminating in a beautiful and moving sequence set on a train, that I won't ruin for newcomers here), I genuinely felt as though I had come out the other side of the film as a slightly different person: stronger, more confident, and more secure in my place in the world. How many films can truly move you like that?
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that you have to have a deeply personal or profound experience like mine with this film to enjoy it. There's so much here to recommend to even a casual viewer, whether it's the visual comedy of Sen's bath-house experiences, the cuteness of many of the character designs, or the sheer sense of imagination that exudes from every pore.
But if you really invest yourself in it, you'll find that this is a powerful movie that goes far beyond the normal reach of a mere animated kids' adventure. And on Blu-Ray - with the unsurpassed picture and sound quality that makes the high-definition format such a boon for fans of hand-drawn animation (as well as the elimination of some of the defects of earlier DVD versions, such as the odd overly-red tinge that marred the visuals of many of the standard-definition releases of 'Spirited Away') - it finally has a release worthy of its greatness.
I wish I could give it six stars.
When you watch 'Guardians of the Galaxy', there will be a moment when you realise that this space-faring fantasy-comedy is quite unlike any of Marvel's other superhero movies to date. For me, that moment was when a walking, talking raccoon instructed a grown man to steal a prosthetic leg from a prison inmate so that a group of convicted criminals - including a sentient tree - could escape from a space station and fly off to safety (in this case, safety that happens to take the form of the gigantic severed head of a long-dead space-god, floating in the cosmos).
Silly? Yes. Nonsensical? Yes. Weird? Yes. But you'll have such a great time with this movie that those qualities will all become positives.
The movie tells the story of Peter Quill, a young boy from Earth in the 1980s who is bereaved at an early age when his mother dies of cancer, and who is immediately transported off to space by persons unknown. We catch up with Peter years later, while he's trying to forge a living as an intergalactic thief under the self-styled pseudonym "Star Lord". He's the movie's most central character, so it's a good job that actor Chris Pratt is charming and likeable enough to carry off Star Lord's combination of roguish charm and bumbling buffoonery in such a way that he's very easy to root for.
As his journey progresses - driven by the macguffin of a powerful and mysterious orb that Star Lord has stolen, with plans to sell it off for a tidy profit - we run into a host of other colourful characters who fill out the movie. These include Rocket, a talking raccoon-like creature with a love for huge guns and destruction; Groot, a walking tree with a benevolent nature who can only say his own name; Drax, an overly-literal strongman with a tragic backstory; Gamora, a bad-girl-turned-good who plans to get revenge on her adopted father; and Ronan, the film's big villain, who intends to use the orb's powers for his own evil ends.
They're the kind of characters that feel simultaneously fresh and familiar: for example, Star Lord is just like Indiana Jones (only maybe a bit more hapless) but transplanted to space, while Rocket and Groot are like Han Solo and Chewbacca if they were turned into cartoonish computer-generated creations. This easy sense of familiarity helps us to easily get the measure of the characters without too much fuss, allowing the film to entertain us with the details, and to dazzle us with its stunning, colourful design work and imaginative locales packed with distinctive supporting characters (I haven't even mentioned the roles played by Karen Gillan, Benicio Del Toro, John C Reilly or Josh Brolin - I'll leave you to discover them yourself).
This is the polar opposite of a grim, grey space-faring movie like Alien: here, everything is rainbow-coloured and bursting with life, and it helps to create the sense of a fully-realised, living and breathing universe for our heroes to traverse (the creation of which is explored in a satisfying amount of detail in this Blu-Ray's special features).
In many ways, the film is very conventional. The plot is a simple one (you can probably predict the ending almost as soon as the story is set up), but it's inflated with big action set-pieces and given extra life by a constant stream of humour that helps to keep it interesting and enjoyable even when there's not a huge amount of forward momentum. The real fun here is in the details, and it's very easy to fall in love with the wacky, strange, but ultimately warm and cosy world that director James Gunn has created here.
Silly? Yes! Nonsensical? Yes! Weird? Yes! Great fun? Yes!
That's Guardians of the Galaxy for you.
"It doesn't matter what you say, we are still the best!"
This is the mantra of Lukas Moodyson's delightful coming-of-age story, about three teenage girls who form a punk band in 1980s Sweden, despite lacking any discernible musical talent. Bobo and Klara live and breathe punk, wearing their hair short and rejecting any commercial "disco" music.
It's out of pettiness that they book a session in their local community centre's music room, to get rid of the more conventional rock band (all older boys) whose rehearsal is giving them a headache. But they start messing about with a drum kit and bass guitar and compose something that helps them to express themselves- a rant against compulsory PE called "Hate The Sport".
Eventually appreciating that their combined musical prowess leaves a lot to be desired, they reach out to talented guitarist Hedvig, a loner who's mocked as a square in their school for playing Christian music in the annual talent show. Together, the three of them become a punk trio with unshakable self-esteem, at least on Bobo's part.
Moodyson's comedy has echoes of School Of Rock and Son Of Rambow, a couple of English language family comedies with a similar focus on kids being creative. Like those films, it hinges on performances from terrific young actors- Mira Barkhammar as Bobo, Mira Grosin as Klara and Liv LeMoyne as Hedvig.
Their sympathetic and believable performances are backed by a well-observed script, based on a graphic novel, Never Goodnight, by Moodyson's wife Coco. It's full of moments which feel like they might have come from first-hand experience from either the director or the original author, particularly in the interactions between the Freudian power trio, (with Klara as Marxist ego, Hedvig as well-adjusted super-ego and Bobo as a mediating id.)
But so much of the film relies upon the characters, because they're really doing it for themselves. There's no stand-in for Jack Black's Dewey as a music-savvy mentor- the duo who supervise the music room are witless and condescending, much to the girls' bemusement.
The girls' ramshackle musical education is all the more entertaining because it's self-administered and their self-assurance feels strangely hard earned, if not entirely warranted, as a result.
The story of the film spreads over the painstaking perfection of their one and only song, before subverting expectations with the hilarious finale at an all-important gig in Västerås. Because it doesn't matter what you say. They are the best.
I am a proud owner of this boxset, it is one of the best in my collection, a very reasonable price for what it is, doctor who is one of the best tv shows around and i am very happy to have all of the new episodes to date in one tidy boxset, the quality of the blu rays and the box They come in are very satisfying. I would reccommend this set to any Doctor Who fan, every penny you spend will be worth it!
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays former FBI agent Mark Kaminsky who goes undercover to infiltrate and destroy a mob organisation. Success could bring with it the chance of reinstatement after he was forced to leave the FBI due to his rough treatment of a suspect. However, and as you might expect, Arnie continues to dish out the rough treatment as he works his way through an assortment of bad guys.
Whilst most commonly associated with his role in the Terminator films, Schwarzenegger's best run of films is perhaps the five he made consecutively in the period 1985-88 - Commando (1985), Raw Deal (1986), Predator (1987), The Running Man (1987) and Red Heat (1988). Whilst Raw Deal may not be the strongest of the five, it certainly does not disappoint. The important thing to remember in all of this though is a fact that should be obvious - if you don't like Arnold Schwarzenegger or old-school action films in general, you will almost certainly not like this film. If you do however, then you should definitely watch it. You will be glad that you did.
Without going over the top, Raw Deal makes you yearn for the days when they knew how, or could be bothered, to make decent action films. Yes, it is formulaic. But why should formulaic be a bad thing? If you are looking for interesting and developed characterization woven into a sophisticated and multi-layered plot, you really should be asking yourself why you are looking for these things in an Arnie film.
Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk till Dawn, was an intriguing blend of post-Pulp Fiction noir meets John Carpenter style horror with a nod to vampire movies like The Lost Boys, Hammer's Dracula and even a mid 80s episode of Tales from the Crypt.
I had absolutely no idea how they could turn that film into a TV show and expect it to work but Rodriguez somehow manages to pull it off: The series begins as a straightforward, and somewhat pointless, remake of the movie; with sibling armed-robbers-on-the-run; Seth and Riche Gecko (originally played by George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino, now by DJ Cotrona and Zane Holtz) trying to make it over the Texas border into Mexico.
The series differs from the film in that we get more time to develop each character and they're some nice touches where we see scenes that were going on at other times e.g. in the movie, Riche Gecko asks Seth what took him so long to get back from Big Kahuna Burger, well now we get to see what happened at Big Kahuna Burger and so on.
From Dusk Till Dawn also delves into the Aztec, Incan and Mayan mythology hinted at in the movie's memorable final shot; as Rodriguez attempts to bring a lot of elements together; most of it works, some of it doesn't but his creative impulse for doing the show become clear when the series breaks away from the movie (episode 4 onwards): For whereas the film and its straight-to-DVD prequels, were self-contained horror / action flicks, here we get a lot of interesting back story about who the vampires actually are, what they want and how the Gecko brothers fit into their plans e.g. in the movie, Salma Hayek's Santanico Pandemonium only had about 5-10 minutes of screen-time but Eiza Gonzalez gets a lot to work with in terms of Satanico's origin and her place in the vampire hierarchy. Robert Patrick's take on ex-pastor Jacob (originally played by Harvey Kietel) is quite good and the Gecko brothers themselves are given a slightly new twist: D.J. Cotrona plays it very similar to Clooney but just stops short of an impersonation, whilst Zane Holtz crafts an entirely new character for Riche Gecko: Quentin Tarantino's Richie Gecko was a geeky psychopath but Holtz plays him as a suave but awkward oddball and thus makes the character his own.
Good series, worth watching if you loved the film.
Scarlett Johansson stars in Under The Skin, a film about an alien creature disguised as a woman, who is bent on seducing a man for her own evil ends. "But wait!" I hear you cry, "I already saw that movie! It was called Species and it came out ages ago!". Well yes, the two movies do share some striking similarities. But while Species was very much the blockbuster, mainstream version of that story, this is definitely its more challenging, obscure, art-house counterpart.
The film starts as it means to go on, with a long sequence of abstract images and irritating, high-pitched noises that take a long time to actually resolve themselves into anything meaningful or coherent. It feels convincingly alien, but not in an entertaining way. I guess director Jonathan Glazer wanted to set out from the start that this wasn't going to be an easy watch, but I don't know if a long, difficult sequence like that is the best way to get the audience on your side.
From there, things get a bit more easy to follow as we meet Johansson's character (and her mysterious motorcyclist protector). There are long montages of her driving a van around Scotland, talking to men as part of attempts to pick them up. I thought these were the most interesting parts of the film, as they felt very convincing and true to life in a way that a lot of films don't (apparently some of these bits were filmed "candid camera" style, which explains it).
But these sequences end up leading to more confusing abstractness. I won't spoil what happens to the men Johansson's character picks up - although you can probably guess it isn't good - but the scenes showing their fate are again very drawn-out and it often isn't clear exactly what's happening to them.
And honestly, that's more or less all there is to the film, with a couple of deviations.
Maybe this is more aimed at men who will be interested enough in the concept of Scarlett Johansson as a strange alien woman going around seducing normal blokes, and they didn't think it really needed anything more. But for this viewer, it wasn't enough.
However while part of me wants to give this film just one star, it wouldn't be fair, as there are a couple of good things about it. I enjoyed some of Johansson's acting - particularly the part where she's learning to form sounds and speak, which was quite clever and well thought out. And there's one genuinely moving/terrifying scene in which a toddler's parents are killed at a beach and Johansson's character just coldly leaves him there alone, crying. It's a nightmarish, inhuman idea that's coupled with suitably harsh visuals of a stormswept, rugged coastline, and it worked well to create a disturbing effect.
But other than that, I totally failed to connect with the film, and it was a real struggle just to get to the end of it. Ordinarily I might admit that a lack of connection like that could be my problem as much as the film's, but Under The Skin seems to be so deliberate in its determination to give you nothing to really get hold of (other than a pouty Scarlett) that I have to say that this time I think it's the film that's the problem, not me.
Simply the best As Good As Fool's And Horse's I Swear Oh Sorry Mammy Mammy You Still There
good special effects but movie wasnt very good could have been so much better will appeal to short guys fans and special effects fans
as long as this film isnt repeated
rare that a sequel surpasses the first but since the recent remake of planet of the apes each movie has improved this looks at the apes and the humans as closer than people think and those similarities will push them into war or help them avoid it
rare that a sequel surpasses the first but since the recent remake of planet of the apes each movie has improved
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