End of The Week Post

The Adventures of Tintin - 2011 directed by Steven Spielberg
9/10

 The comics were childhood favourites of mine, so I was rather nervous when the cinematic adaptation was announced, but with time more information about the project emerged and I began to look forward to it. Peter Jackson producing, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish scripting it, Andy Serkis etc...
It has certainly proved to be extremely divisive, with most hardcore fans of the source material hating it. I however thought it was the best possible adaptation that could have come from the comics. It had a fantastic group of people behind it and they succeeded admirably.
It was far more similar to the books than I had expected which was very pleasing, but I felt that it did occasionally take it's action scenes to unnecessary levels, in particular the "crane fight" scene, which was very over the top. But apart from that, and Captain Haddock's accent which got slightly irritating after a while, the film was a complete success in my opinion.

End Of The Week Post

Films seen this week:

Pusher - 1996 directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
8/10

Refn is one of the most interesting directors of his generation and while Drive may very well prove to be his breakthrough film, he has been making quality films ever since 1996.
Pusher was Refn's first film and a minor success, it tells the tale of a small time drug pusher operating in Copenhagen who as a result of an unfortunate chain of events finds himself in enormous debt to his providers. His life is at stake while he desperately tries to gather the sum he owes. It is a downward spiral through and through and whilst the outcome is obvious from the start, it is nonetheless a fascinating watch. At first the handheld, gritty style was off putting, but as the film went on I grew to appreciate the films other aspects. It is a story ade up of very familiar elements, yet I still thought it brought a certain freshness to the gangster genre.

Return To Blogging.

I've been meaning to post this for ages and it's just been getting longer and longer. So don't bother reading this if your not interested, I'm mainly doing it so as to keep track of all the films I watched anyway...


X Men First Class - 2011 directed by Matthew Vaughn
4/10
Of course due to my dislike for superhero films in general, I was not expecting to love this film. But the all around high praise it received did lead me to expect a certain level of quality. Unfortunately I found the film to be most disappointing.
Matthew Vaughn is a talented director, and all the cast have done some great work previously, but for me this film just failed completely. The praise it receives completely mystifies me.

End Of The Week Post

Sorry for my abscence, these past couple of weeks have been particularly busy for me. But I've decided to get back into blogging now and should keep it up for the whole of September at least.


Films seen since Sunday 14th August :

Blue - 1993 directed by Kryzysztof Kieslowski
8/10
After seeing Kieslowski's The Double Life Of Veronique, I was intirgued by this director's work and decided to watch his celebrated Three Colours Trilogy.
 This first film in the trilogy is an interesting one and is often considered the best. I can't say I fully understood it, but it certainly is a most beautiful piece of cinema, and is the most impressive of the trilogy in terms of it's use of the titular colour.
I realise that it was a film aimed primarily at capturing a state of mind on film, rather than a series of events. Fortunately the central performance by Juliette Binoche is impressive enough for this to work and it makes for an all around good film, that somehow left me slightly underwhelmed.

End of the Week Post

Films seen this week:

The Usual Suspects - 1995 directed by Bryan Singer

10/10

This is a brilliant film, I had forgotten just how great it was, or maybe I had failed to perceive it at first. What makes it so great is the fact that no matter how many problems you may have with the film, say you think one scene is overly dramatic, or that you think you've found a plot hole or that you think the motivations of one character were unclear, all perfectly sensible criticisms that actually are useless when brought against The usual Suspects, because all that transpires is essentially a completely made up and warped version of events, told by one of the characters, so to criticise the film's story is to criticise his story which is all untrue anyway. Brilliantly done and a very original and enjoyable piece of cinema that is a perfect blend of the more artistic types of American films and the blockbusters.

End Of Week Post

Let There Be Rock 1980 directed by Eric Dionysius, Eric Mistler

This is by far one of the best live performances by a band I've ever seen. The energy of this band and the enormity of their performance and overall sound is simply astounding.
This is definitely some of the best live footage of ACDC and I'd say it's a must see for all their fans. And even for any fans of the Rock genre as a whole, as few bands completely capture the very spirit of rock as well as ACDC did.




La Double Vie De Veronique - 1991 directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
9/10

 This is a film I had heard much about and was really looking forward to. It is also the first of Kieslowski's films I have seen, I thought it was a most interesting work, that could have been off putting in it's vagueness if not for the wonderful performance of Irene Jacob and the stunning cinematography.
It is truly a beautiful film to look at, and the story kept me interested even thought it was almost cryptic in it's nature, I thought it flowed very well and the fact that I didn't grasp all of it did not bother me at all. It reminded me of a David Lynch film in some ways, the way nothing is explained for the viewer and the way themes are followed through in peculiar ways throughout the film. I liked it a lot and Kieslowski has definitely got my interest, I look forward to seeing the Three Colours Trilogy and the Decalogue.

End Of The Week Post

 A slight improvement on the last week's viewing, but still not as many films as I would have liked:

The Great Silence 1968 directed by Sergio Curbucci
7/10

I don't believe I've ever seen a film try so persistently to subvert and deconstruct a genre than The Great Silence does.
It takes so many familiar elements of the genre and spins them completely on themselves, we have the very setting itself which is typically dry, dusty and hot transformed into a snowy wasteland, the bandits are portrayed as sympathetic and the bounty hunters as villainous, the classic "six shooter" of the hero is traded out for a automatic Mauser and the end is entirely unexpected and a complete reversal of what you may have come to expect from a Western.
It's a poorly made film, with awful dubbing, but it is saved by the sheer originality of it all, and of course by Kinski's and Trintignant's performances, as the rest of the cast are terrible. It's a fun film all around, not a masterpiece but as far as non-Leone Spaghetti Westerns go, this one was good.

End Of The Week Post

My viewing this week on a pretty pathetic scale, only one film seen. I don't even have any excuses, I just didn't get around to watching as many films as I wanted to.

Alfie - 1966 directed by Lewis Gilbert
9/10

Alfie is a vastly misunderstood British masterpiece. It has sadly never got the recognition it deserved in my opinion, even if it did start Michael Caine's career and was the subject for an awful looking remake starring Jude Law. But its delightfully dark humour, inventive directing, brilliant use of narration (which involves Alfie breaking the fourth wall in a most amusing fashion) combined with its highly interesting views on morality and the extreme skill with the character of Alfie is developed make it a most interesting piece of Cinema, that is as subtle in its approach to its subject, as it is ground-breaking in its choice of subject and its technical prowess.  It may seem rather dated by modern standards, but this is only because it succeeds in capturing the times it is set in so well. It may not be a timeless classic, but it's a film I feel is worthy of a reevaluation.

End Of The Week Month Post

I'm back! This post marks my triumphant return to blogging.
Due to my massive move, I haven't been able to see as many films as usual, and have not been very active on the internet at all. However I did manage to see these few films over the last month or so, since my last post which was on the 19th of June. 
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get much written during this break, mainly because I've been busier than usual and have had a terrible but thankfully temporary internet connection. 
Now my connection is considerably better and I've started putting together my various ideas for posts.

Films seen:

Touch Of Evil - 1958 directed by Orson Welles
8/10
Yet another Classic I had never seen. I like Orson Welles very much as both an actor and a director, and I'm glad I saw this fully restored version which was as close to Welles original vision as possible.
The directing and cinematography were extraordinary, I'll never forget that dolly shot that opens the film. Overall the film is a technical marvel, and Welles gives a fantastic performance. The story was rather interesting, but I thought it felt rather incomplete, like a rough draft rather than a fully finished script. This, combined with the strange attitudes and performances from the rest of the cast and the unnatural stilted dialogue, took away from my enjoyment of the film somewhat. But nonetheless it remains a great cinematical achievement.   

End Of The Week Post

A pretty poor week for viewing I'm afraid to say, for reasons made clear below...

Films Seen This Week:


The Phenix City Story - 1955 directed by Phil Karlson
8/10

I was urged to watch this by Nathanael Hood and I'm very glad I did so.
This was quite a powerful, if poorly made film, that showed the darker side of America. I can't say I loved it, but I was impressed by the brutal honesty of it all, very realistic and very convincing. However I did find it overly preachy.
Definitely a memorable viewing experience though, if only for a certain very horrifying scene that I will long remember. In fact, the film reminded me in a way of The Intruder that I reviewed not long ago, there may not seem to be much ground for comparison at first, but the fashion in which it was made, combined with the horrifying yet honest look at the darker side of America reminded me of that film at times... 

End Of The Week Post

This is a pretty enormous post as I've watched quite a lot this week, some great films, some not so good...


Rushmore - 1998 directed by Wes Anderson
7/10

 There is something I find really off putting about Anderson's films. It's hard to say exactly what but as much as I like the directing, music performances and the rest, I still find the films to be vaguely annoying and obnoxious.
Still, Rushmore was good. I really enjoyed the sound track, made up of some of my favourite artists such as The Who, John Lennon and many more.
Olivia Williams was particularly great, possibly the best performance in the film. I really should see more of her work.


   

End Of The Week Post

Films seen this week:

Rango - 2011 directed by Gore Verbinski
9/10

I had high expectations for this, but I was surprised to find that this is easily the best animation I've seen since Toy Story 3.
I loved the references to some of my favourite films, I liked the voice acting a lot and even liked the fact that all the characters were animals. Usually that kind of thing annoys me but here I enjoyed seeing all the different species of the desert each perfectly suited for the character.
It had it's faults, such as a few overly sentimental scenes, but on the whole it's simply a fantastic animation that was not as childish as I at first expected.

End of Week Post

This was an interesting week that saw the end of my Silent film marathon and my return to normal blogging. Thanks again to all those who put up with my endless Silent film reviews for weeks. I appreciate it. 


25th Hour - 2002 directed by Spike Lee
9/10

A most excellent film that ranks among Spike Lee's finest films. The whole cast is excellent and while I had a few problems with Lee's style of film making at first the at times jarring editing in particular, I soon got used to it.The story was one that might not sound very interesting on paper, but I can assure you that the combined talents behind this film make it quite gripping to watch, even though it lasts well over 2 hours I can honestly say I was not bored for a minute.
At first I felt a bit to detached from the film, possibly because of how overtly even aggressively American it was, however I found the end to be very moving.
It's a very realistic film in many ways, especially where the different characters and there motives are concerned, and I liked that a lot. Very admirable work by Spike Lee.

End Of The Week Post

Films Watched this Week:

Road To Perdition - 2002 directed by Sam Mendes
7/10
A well made but forgettable film. Tom Hanks was rather miscast in the lead role as a ruthless hitman, but then again I've never really been a fan of his work.
While I'm on the subject of performances, Daniel Craig was pretty bad, very unconvincing with a terrible accent. Paul Newman was of course excellent, but the big surprise for me was Jude Law, I've never liked his work before, but here he was perfectly cast and did a great job as the extremely creepy and rather pathetic killer.
I thought it was well directed, and the story was interesting enough, but it just failed to make much of an impression on me. It failed to draw me in and left me detached and only semi-interested throughout, yet I appreciate the skill with which it was made.

End Of The Week Post

Well, I got bored of posting two posts at the end of each week, so I've just combined them into one. I noticed only one of the two posts got many comments anyway so I think it will be better this way.

Films Seen This Past Week:


Phantom Of The Paradise - 1974 directed by Brian De Palma
9/10
I have never been a fan of De Palma's work, but recently a saw Blow Out and proclaimed it the best of his films I had seen, and now I've seen Phantom of The Paradise I'll proclaim it the second best of his that I've seen. It's a wildly entertaining reinterpretation of Faust that I thought would be the kind of "so bad it's good" film, but I was wrong, it's actually an excellently shot, decently acted film with some brilliantly campy set and costume design. 
It was perfectly paced and I wasn't bored for a second, I would highly recommend this for those looking for something really entertaining.

Weekly Collection of Random Film Thoughts

• It was the anniversary of Sergio Leone's death a couple of days ago, it's such a loss to Cinema. Such a shame he had that compulsive eating disorder which ended up killing him, for his films about the Siege Of Leningrad would surely have been amazing... Thankfully his name will live on through his films, especially the Good The Bad and The Ugly, which is one of the most loved films of all time.

Quick Ratings/Reviews of The Week

Dobermann - 1997 directed by Jan Kounen
7/10
All you need to know about this film is that in one scene a character literally wipes his arse with a copy of Les Cahiers Du Cinema, this is the perfect way to sum up this film.
Read my full review here!

Quick Ratings/Reviews of The Week

 12 films seen this week, only one of them was a rewatch. Not bad viewing, if I may say so myself...


 Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas - 1998 directed by Terry Gilliam
8/10
This is one of the few Terry Gilliam films I had not seen previously, I don't know why I had never got around to it exactly, maybe because of the mixed reviews or because of the fact that I don't consider Johnny Depp to be a very good actor.
But I was very pleasantly surprised, this was such a fun film, wildly entertaining and very different from what I was expecting. I realise now that I should have had faith in Gilliam, who is one of my favourites, and watched this earlier, as it's a great film.
I might even read the book now..

Weekly Collection of Random Film Thoughts

• I can't say that I was looking forward to Peter Jackson's The Hobbit much when it was first announced.  But after seeing this video I have changed my mind, Jackson is obviously very passionate about the film and is the best choice for director of the film, even if I still believe this film should have been made before the LOTR trilogy. Despite my few reservations when it comes to the LOTR films, I still think they are very good adaptations of the books and I'm sure The Hobbit is going to be just as good; although the fact that there seems to me much added material worries me a bit. And of course it is being shot in 48 fps, the first film in history to be shot in that format. So, good luck Peter Jackson!

Weekly Collection of Random Film Thoughts

• RIP Sidney Lumet, you were one of the very best Pre-New Wave directors. I loved Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Network, all would placed very highly on my favourites list. I'll be watching his final film, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, as a sort of tribute to his death.