Tag: films
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The Hateful Eight
Like many others, I have something of a love/hate relationship with Quentin Tarantino. Actually it’s more a love/whatever relationship. I admire him enormously as a film-maker, but he does have missteps and I don’t worship the feet he walks on. I’ve not actually yet seen his previous film, Django Unchained! I say this to put…
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The Program
Right at the beginning of The Program, the BBFC certificate popped up. The film is rated 15 for “strong language, use of performing-enhancing drugs.” Quite. (And I realise, I’m not the first person to note this.) The Program is Stephen Frears’ new film about Lance Armstrong, the seven-times winner of the Tour de France, before…
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The Martian and Sicario
There seems to be a spate of pretty decent films coming all of a sudden at the moment, so after a bit of a barren period when endless super-hero films haven’t inspired me to go to the cinema, I’m suddenly going a little more. The Martian is Ridley Scott’s new film, based on the book…
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Mistress America
I think it must be a surfeit of summer super hero films, but I’ve not been to the cinema much recently. However a new Greta Gerwig film is always something to look forward to, so I decided to head out to see Mistress America. I thought it’d be nice to see it locally so I…
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Visions of the Future: Mad Max and Tomorrowland
Mad Max: Fury Road, is just demented. In a good way. George Miller returns to his 1979 character, essentially re-imagining him, this time played by Tom Hardy. The film is very high concpet. Max is chased through the desert with Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and a group of women the crazed leader of the “War…
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The Duke of Burgundy
Peter Strickland is one of my favourite directors at the moment, and basically I will watch anything he makes. He used an inheritance to make Katalin Varga, a fascinating little 2009 film in which a woman confronts the abusers of her past. It’s set in Romanian speaking Hungary and filmed in that language. But it…
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Scheduling Films
A regular moan, but it bears repeating. Do we have to have “awards season” films? What is the idiocy behind releasing every film Hollywood (and others) think is awards worthy over a 2-3 month period when there are so many barren times of the year? Yes – I understand that winning an Oscar/BAFTA has a…
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The Price of Rental
I missed Guardians of the Galaxy in cinemas earlier this year. But it was well reviewed, and I did plan to catch it. The good news is that it came out on “home video” recently. So I could either buy it on DVD or BluRay, or watch it in download/streaming. If I choose to rent…
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Films Sometimes Take A While
Last year at the London Film Festival, I went to the surprise film. It was Wong Kar Wai’s long awaited new film – The Grandmaster. Well I say, “new”, but actually I was watching it in October, when the film had actually come out in China in January 2013. The film had experienced a somewhat…
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Interstellar
A new Christopher Nolan film is always something to welcome. He’s been on quite a winning streak for a while now. And while I might prefer the original Norwegian Insomnia to his perfectly fine remake, and think that Christopher Priest’s novel of The Prestige is better than the film, I’m actually a fan. Interstellar is…
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Blockbusters and Sleepless In Hollywood
If it feels to you, as it does to me, that there are an ever greater number of superhero and other franchise films clogging up cinemas, then you’d be right. And these two books explain pretty well between them what’s happening in Hollywood and beyond. Indeed, it’s the “beyond” that is really driving this. Blockbusters…
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American Hustle
The new David O Russell film, American Hustle is immensely enjoyable. We’re dropped in at the deep end, with some kind of con or undercover operation going on. And not going well. But we get quickly get into flashback as our narrator and main character Irving Rosenfield (Christian Bale), sets out in a life –…
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Captain Phillips and Saving Mr Banks
Tom Hanks managed to somehow both open and close this year’s London Film Festival with a pair of very different films that I managed to see within twenty four hours of each other. Some film-makers demand to be seen, whatever they do. And Paul Greengrass is one such film-maker. Captain Phillips opened this year’s London…