Archive for April, 2010

  • 05 Apr

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    Film on TV: April 5-11

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    fistful-of-dollars.jpg
    A Fistful of Dollars, playing on TCM on Saturday, April 10th.

    A bit sparse this week, but still plenty of things worth checking out. Among the newly featured films are a couple of Australian comedies, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert on Monday and Strictly Ballroom on Friday, the early Woody Allen sci-fi comedy Sleeper on Tuesday, sparkling screwball comedy Libeled Lady on Thursday, quintessential spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars on Friday, and Garbo showcase Queen Christina on Sunday.

    Monday, April 5

    8:00pm – IFC – The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
    Any half-decent film about three drag queens driving a bus through the Australian outback in outlandish costumes (and sometimes lipsynching to opera while sitting in an enormous shoe strapped on top of the bus) pretty much has to be fabulous, and this one is. Hugo Weaving is the one with the secret former marriage and son, Terence Stamp the aging one who tends to be somewhat bitter but can also be the consummate lady, and Guy Pearce is the flamboyant youth. As they move through the Outback toward their next proposed gig as lipsynching dancers, they run into mechanical difficulties, bigotry, and interpersonal conflicts that get into more thoughtful territory than you might expect.
    1994 Australia. Director: Stephan Elliott. Starring: Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Terence Stamp, Rebel Penfold-Russell.
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats at 3:00am on the 6th)

    10:00pm – Sundance – Le doulos
    Jean-Paul Belmondo brings his signature style to Jean-Pierre Meville’s excellent crime film as a possible police informant working with another criminal on a jewel heist. These two men are played off each other in a sort of doubling motif – it’s often even difficult to tell which is which, due to careful cinematography and lighting work by Melville.
    1962 France. Director: Jean-Pierre Melville. Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, René Lefèvre.
    (repeats at 5:25am on the 6th, and 6:25am and 2:15pm on the 10th)

    1:30am (6th) – TCM – Shane
    Alan Ladd plays the titular cowboy, idolized by the young son of the family he takes refuge with as he tries to escape Jack Palance.
    1953 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Alan Ladd, Van Heflin, Jean Arthur, Jack Palance.

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  • 03 Apr

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    Review: How To Train Your Dragon

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    Directors: Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders
    Screenplay: Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders
    Based on the novel by: Cressida Cowell
    Starring the voice talents of: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrara, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson
    Year: 2010

    (4.5/5)

    How to Train Your Dragon is surprisingly amazing – a popcorn movie for kids, sure, but soooooooo much fun. Between the abysmal Shreks and Monsters vs. Aliens, Dreamworks Animation is still a poor cousin to Pixar, but they’ve cranked it clean out of the park this time. Or more aptly, they’re up there riding dragons, and everyone else is watching from the ground.

    The tale, loosely adapted from the childrens’ book of the same name, concerns Hiccup (Jay Baruchel, weary and winsome), the only citizen of his particular Viking town who isn’t built like Mr. Incredible wearing a grizzly bear. Further to his dismay, Hiccup is the only son of the chief, Stoick the Vast, who is indeed both stoic and vast; and even worse than this, the town is under near-daily attack by rampaging dragons. Vikings being Vikings, dragon-killing is the national pastime in this rocky corner of the world, and Hiccup ain’t even fit to fetch the water.

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  • 03 Apr

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    Review: Kick-Ass

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    Director: Matthew Vaughn
    Screenplay: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn
    Based on the Comic Book Series by: Mark Millar
    Producers: Adam Bohling, Tarquin Pack, Brad Pitt, David Reid, Kris Thykier & Matthew Vaughn
    Starring: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloe Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong
    Year: 2010
    Country: USA & UK
    BBFC Certification: 15
    Duration: 117 min

    (4/5)

    Riding a crimson wave of controversy and hype Kick-Ass finally reached our shores this week and the question on everyone’s lips is does it deliver what the trailers and title promises? Well I can safely say yes. I really enjoyed this film a lot, but it’s not without it’s flaws, which I’ll go into shortly. Meanwhile I’m going to try my absolute hardest not to crack the obvious pun.

    For the three people that don’t know what this film is about, Kick-Ass is the story of a teenage loser, Dave Lizewski, who is fed up of the fact that there are so many real bad guys in the world yet no real superheroes, so he crafts a costume out of a mail order wet-suit, buys a couple of truncheons and heads out to help those in need as his alter-ego Kick-Ass. His first attempts don’t go particularly well, but after an onlooker captures him successfully laying out some vigilante justice, the footage gets put online and Kick-Ass becomes an internet and subsequently full on media sensation. This of course pumps Dave up to follow his dream, but he soon realises that there are much more effective superheroes and much more dangerous bad guys out there as he gets embroiled with the war raging between the deadly father and daughter team Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, and mob kingpin Frank D’Amico.

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  • 02 Apr

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    Trailer for Alain Resnais’ Wild Grass in Glorious Quicktime

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    Last week, we were blessed not only with a teaser trailer for the eagerly-anticipated Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but also the first one for master French filmmaker Alain Resnais’ latest film Wild Grass, which screened at Cannes last year.

    Personally, I’ve been intrigued about this thing ever since reading about its plot (about a man who finds a woman’s lost red wallet and romantically pursues her, often aggressively), seeing gorgeously colorful stills for it and learning of its illustrious cast (Andre Dussollier, Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos are included). Wild Grass will apparently hit North American theatres June 25th – a date I will be eagerly awaiting.

    Until then, you can see the trailer tucked under the seat, or at the Apple website.

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  • 02 Apr

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    Talk Amongst Yourselves

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  • 02 Apr

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    Review: Who Dares Wins

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    Director: Ian Sharp
    Screenplay: Reginald Rose & George Markstein
    Based on the book by: James Follett
    Producer: Euan Lloyd
    Starring: Lewis Collins, Judy Davis, Richard Widmark, Edward Woodward
    Year: 1982
    Country: UK & Switzerland
    BBFC Certification: 15
    Duration: 125 min

    (2.5/5)

    P.S. Apologies for the poor images, I don’t have the facilities to get Blu-Ray screen grabs and this film is too obscure to find decent images on the net.

    A really odd choice for a 2-disc special edition Blu-Ray re-release, Who Dares Wins (aka The Final Option) is a British action thriller from the early 80′s which, although mildly successful, got fairly panned on it’s release and has spent the last decade in DVD bargain-bins. I think it must have cult credentials, but it has to have a tiny following if any as there are very few reviews of the film online. Arrow Films however deemed it worthy of the spit and polish treatment and kindly sent me a copy to cast my critical eye over.

    Who Dares Wins is largely an advert for the SAS (the title is the regiment’s slogan) and was inspired by the famous siege of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. TV star and SAS trainee (supposedly denied entry due to his fame) Lewis Collins plays Captain Peter Skellen, an SAS soldier who fakes a dishonourable discharge in order to work under cover in a political group called The People’s Lobby. The group is seemingly a bunch of peace-loving activists intent on disarming the world’s nuclear armaments, but is actually a front for a terrorist group (I’ll touch on the loopy politics later). Skellen gets up close and personal with the female leader Frankie Leith (played by Judy Davis) and eventually discovers that they plan to take a group of politicians, military leaders and dignitaries hostage, promising their release only if the government fires a nuclear missile on an evacuated area of Scotland to show the world the true level of destruction a warhead of this kind can cause.

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  • 01 Apr

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    Review: Max Manus

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    Max Manus Movie Poster

    Directors: Joachim Rønning & Espen Sandberg (Bandidas
    Writer: Thomas Nordseth-Tiller
    Producers: Sveinung Golimo, John M. Jacobsen
    Starring: Aksel Hennie, Agnes Kittelsen, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Ken Duken
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 118 min.

    (3.5/5)

    When a war rages on for as long and as widespread as WWII, you’re bound to continually discover interesting stories to tell. From the brilliant documentary The Rape of Europa which shone a light on the work done by the monument men to 2007’s The Counterfeiters about a plot to kill the world economy by making counterfeit pound notes, these stories always seem to find an audience and there’s little doubt that Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s tale will find some love among history aficionados and film fans alike.

    Max Manus Movie StillWritten by Thomas Nordseth-Tiller, Max Manus tells the story of a real life war hero, a Norwegian who was determined to fight back when he felt his country essentially gave itself up to Nazi occupation. Max retreated to Scotland, made friends, received training and returned to Norway to begin a career as one of the war efforts’ most brilliant saboteurs.

    It’s a little surprising that a film as polished and well crafted as Max Manus comes at the hands of the directing duo who also brought us the awful Bandidas. Max Manus is visceral when it needs to be (it opens with a bloody exchange of bullets) while also veering into tenderness as this isn’t directly a story of the war effort but more of a tale of a man struggling with his inner demons. Max was brilliant at his job and fiercely loyal taking his role as leader very seriously and feeling the responsibility of each death “on his watch” deeply and so the film teeters from action to drama with expertise.

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  • 01 Apr

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    Shallowness Alert: First Stills from Resident Evil Afterlife

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    Allow me to be shallow for a moment (again) and get excited about the upcoming fourth entry in the guiltiest of guilty pleasures Resident Evil series. I will go to great lengths to get my Milla fix (including actually purchasing Resident Evil movies on Blu-ray, though I have so far resisted buying Ultraviolet). As much as I love The Fifth Element, there’s only so many times I can watch it in a row.

    Anyway. The first stills from Resident Evil: Afterlife have turned up on MySpace. That’s one up above; click through to see the rest. No sign yet of the gazillion Alices that ended RE3, but I’m sure they’ll turn up at some point. Because if one Milla is good…a gazillion Millas is better. Right? Right.

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