Reviews

As a big fan of the original film, I did a little geek-squeal when the trailer for this one appeared out of nowhere!

I'm delighted to say this didn't disappoint at all. The story was gripping and kept me guessing throughout, and all three leads were spot on - Goodman firing on all cylinders, and Winstead perfectly striking the balance between terrified and gutsy.

The film's biggest strength, however, is also the chink in its armour: the first ¾ of the film is played for such grim realism that some people find the last section a little hard to swallow. I say just go with it!

Definitely worth a watch, whether you enjoyed Cloverfield or not.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

If you're looking for a faithful adaptation of the book - plotwise - you'll be disappointed.

What Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley have done is taken some important plot points and the general arc of the story, and a selection of characters, and created a stylish, gripping film that faithfully reproduces the nightmarish insanity of the book. I love that the 70s aesthetic doesn't ever feel like a gimmick - or even that we're watching a period piece... it just makes things seem even more unsettling.

The script is occasionally clunky, but that's my only complaint. If you're a fan of the book, give it a look. If you're not, don't. If you've not read the book, well, I've no idea whether you'd like this or not. That's up to you, isn't it?

Am I the only person who thinks Sienna Miller's a much better actress than she's given credit for? This is also Reese Sheersmith's best "straight"performance.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

I liked the first two films (A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back), but while I could certainly enjoy them and appreciate the MASSIVE cultural impact of both of these (Return of the Jedi can get lost), I was never really a Star Wars fan.

Watching this, though, I think I might become one! I don't care if it offended a few hardcore Jedi Nuts - I thought it was brilliant. A universe that felt real, rather than just a string of special effects sequences; engaging dialogue; characters I cared about… Of course there were plot holes here and there, and yes that's the third time they've used the giant ultra-destructive space station thing, but you can't please everyone.

Bonus points for a strong female lead (played by the EXCELLENT Daisy Ridley) who isn't just a plucky, sexy foil for a male hero.

Now bring on the flame!

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Of course there are plot holes - every film with time travel has plot holes. Deal with it.

But now we've got that out the way, this is an exciting, interesting, well-acted, thoughtfully written film that mixes drama, sci-fi and action without getting muddled. This isn't one of those films that starts with an interesting premise and then fumbles the execution (like Surrogates, for example). You really care for all the characters. Looks gorgeous, too.

Yet to see Emily Blunt or Joseph Gordon-Levitt turn in a bad performance. And I like Bruce Willis and I don't care what you say. The only weak link, I thought, was Jeff Daniels - too bumbling, and not sinister enough for a mob boss.

And while I'm on this, why don't we see Paul Dano in more films?

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Who keeps giving Zack Snyder money to make these enormous mediocrities?!

The actors were all doing a fine job, and Affleck - as I predicted - was particularly excellent as an older, embittered Bruce Wayne/Batman.

Other than that, this is a bloated mess of a film in which character motivations and plot developments are plucked out of a hat. Meanwhile, desperate to catch up with Marvel, DC have tried to cram as many characters in to this one as possible in order to set up their Justice League project.

Worth seeing for Batfleck, as a standalone Batman film is very likely - I just hope they don't let Snyder anywhere near it, and that Goyer gives his head a good shake.

To paraphrase Rossini talking about Wagner, Batman v Superman has some wonderful moments, but awful quarters of an hour.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Looks like a horror film from the marketing, but it's actually a pretty effective courtroom drama - thanks to strong performances from Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson and especially the understated Campbell Scott.

Meanwhile, the exorcism flashback scenes are made disturbing not by CGI or jump scares, but by a turned-up-to-11 performance by the bizarrely underrated Jennifer Carpenter. Honestly can't understand why she hasn't been featured in more.

I liked it, despite the eyeroll-inducing ending, but if you're looking for a scary, exorcism-based horror, though, this isn't it.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Comedy Horror films are tricky. For years, John Landis had his script for this film rejected on the grounds that it was either too scary to be funny, or too funny to be scary.

They were wrong: this film really works. The scary bits are scary. The funny bits are hilarious.

David Naughton's a bit wooden, but everyone else - I mean everyone - is absolutely perfect. Look out for an odd cameo by Rik Mayall, too.

Rick Baker's effects were so groundbreaking at the time they created a new category at the Oscars so they could acknowledge them.

It may be the perfect werewolf movie. It unashamedly deals with the pain of the transformation; the fear-stricken paralysis of the villagers; Naughton being both victim and killer at the same time; Jenny Agutter trying desperately to help her seemingly mentally-ill boyfriend… There are so many great moments of both comedy and horror, miraculously contained in one film, and that's a rare thing.

Verdict: See You Next Wednesday

The best Daniel Craig bond since Casino Royale, without a doubt. Visceral action; witty script; engaging plot that keeps referring back to earlier films - but never in a forced or self- satisfied way.

Most of the cast is excellent, and even though Andrew Scott is poor as usual, I can understand what they were trying to do with his character. He's just not a very good actor.

There's one comedy moment that jars, one revelation that you can see coming a mile off, and one instance of Bond shrugging off a particularly nasty bit of physical distress as if it never happened… and of course Sam Smith's song is absolute rubbish…

But these are minor niggles. It's a belter. I just wish they could have made this film when Dalton was at the helm!

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Star Wars Trilogy Notice: watch the original theatrical version or don't bother at all. I'm not even a big fan of Star Wars, but even I can see that Lucas's "Special Editions" were a travesty.

Better than the original? Possibly. Certainly more depth to the story if you're interested in that sort of thing. More Vader, which is always a good thing. Very very stylish light sabre fight at the end. Dodgy stop motion animation, but who cares - it was 1980. And, once again, there's John Williams providing one of the greatest film scores of all time.

Yoda's still an ace puppet - they really knew how to make them then.

Verdict: Definitely worth a watch, even if you're not into Star Wars type stuff, simply because of the influence it's had even beyond the Sci-Fi genre.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Star Wars Trilogy Notice: watch the original theatrical version or don't bother at all. I'm not even a big fan of Star Wars, but even I can see that Lucas's "Special Editions" were a travesty.

Anyway, enough of that. I couldn't get through this one. Run out of ideas? Let's re-hash some of the ones from the first film again.

Ewoks. No.

That flying motorbike chase was good but it went on for too long.

More revelations about Vader/Skywalker/The-Other-Skywalker? Who cares? Not I.

God those Ewoks. Awful. What the hell was he thinking when he put those in?

Honestly wish I'd never bothered, it was so mediocre. Would rather have left the issues of the second film unresolved than suffer Warwick Davis in a second hand Bungle costume.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Good people are beautiful and can sing. Bad people are ugly and tone deaf.

That's the Disney message here.

Looks absolutely beautiful, though. The comic relief from the mice stops short of being annoying - often genuinely hilarious. I can't recall any real scares, though, and I tend to think it's the darkness in these old Disney films that made them special. Think of the Pleasure Island transformation scene in Pinocchio (1940).

Also, I thought Cinderella looked way better in her ripped dress than the magic gown her Fairy Godmother cooked up for her. More edgy. But then again, this was 1950 and it wasn't directed by Luc Besson, so I should shut my face.

Verdict: Classic Disney, from before the songwriting got too obnoxious, but missing the dark edge of some of the other early efforts.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

This film has very little to do with drumming. It has even less to do with Jazz. Musicians who complain about the factual - and musical - inaccuracies of this film are kind of missing the point.

It's a drama. The script is excellent; the characters are as deep as you could possibly wish for; the acting is absolutely top notch across the board; the pacing as the story develops is wonderful; the ending will leave you hot and cold at the same time…

Yes, the Charlie Parker story is apocryphal - but from a storytelling point of view it's perfect. Yes, Miles Teller's miming is sometimes rather off, but by Jove you can see he's put some bloody work in and taken it seriously. This isn't like Julia Stiles in Save The Last Dance. Incidentally, J. K. Simmons' piano miming is pretty on the money.

If you don't know anything about music, you'll love it. If you're a musician, you'll love it if you've got any bloody common sense and remember that it's a film.

Verdict: It's the Jazz version of Amadeus. So what if it's inaccurate - IT IS A BRILLIANT FILM.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Watch the original theatrical version or don't bother at all. I'm not even a big fan of Star Wars, but even I can see that Lucas's "Special Editions" were a travesty.

Hard to overestimate the influence and impact of this film. The model work is stunning; John Williams' score, of course, is superb; the depth of the universe the film inhabits makes the whole film feel so much more believable…

Credit where credit is due- despite an often ropy script, this is a classic, good-vs-evil, spaceships-and-laserbeams film for kids to enjoy. Whether it's a film for forty-odd year old men to get angry about at conventions is another matter.

Also, light sabres are really really cool.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Now here's a curiosity - one of the last massive blockbusters made before CGI properly came along and changed everything.

Again, it's Arnie. You've got the cheese, you've some excellent action, the ultra-violence we expect from Paul Verhoeven, a cracking scenery-chewing baddie from Michael Ironside…

This film could only have been made in 1990, really. The effects were good enough for the idea to be plausible, but not so slick that they're no longer fun and pulpy. Imagine, for example, if the Mars suffocation scenes were done realistically. They wouldn't have been half as fun, and we wouldn't be blessed with Arnie's bizarre "GAAARRRRGGGRRRHAARRRNGHHHGGGGGAAA" noises.

Proper pulp sci-fi of the kind we'll probably never see again.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

I wanted to see this at the cinema but Mrs F vetoed it on the grounds that all the marketing - and the fact it was a Blumhouse production - indicated that it was a horror film. No amount of protesting could persuade her otherwise.

In actual fact, despite appearances, this is more of a thriller in the vein of Fatal Attraction. And my word it's tense...

I've always liked Rebecca Hall... but while I'm fond of Jason Bateman I wasn't sure of his ability to play a "straight" role like this. Suffice to say, my fears were misplaced.

Meanwhile, Joel Edgerton is as creepy as you could wish for, without hamming it up too much, and there's a brief cameo from Allison Tolman (her breakthrough performance in the "Fargo" TV series is superb).

Verdict: a tense thriller that keeps you guessing

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

This is one of only three James Cameron films I like (the other two being The Terminator and, of course, Piranha 2). It's also a film that's often mentioned in discussions about sequels that are better than the originals.

I don't like this film as much as the original. The original had a real dirt about it - whenever I watch it I feel like I've stumbled upon a strange old video at the back of a shop that nobody else has ever seen before. Something underground about it. This is definitely a big-budget blockbuster…

… but that's not a bad thing in this case. Really well paced, with some astonishing stunts, and special effects that still hold up well today (as most sfx do if they're done with care and thought, not just for for the sake of it). Robert Patrick is a chilling villain, while Arnie re- packages his previous incarnation as a lovable hero but without losing any of the sheer power.

I don't like Linda Hamilton, to be honest. She's ACTING REALLY HARD in this.

Glad Cameron kept Brad Fiedel on to do the score, rather than drafting in Horner.

Anyway, yes - a really excellent action/sci-fi film, and important in terms of the development of SFX/CGI… but I just don't get the same thrill with this as I do when watching The Terminator.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Classic 80s action that pushes all the right buttons. Unlike Commando (1986), though, it's actually a seriously good film. You've got some OTT action scenes and cheesy one-liners, but John McTiernan also creates some genuinely tense moments.

And, of course, it's Arnie.

Note on the score: Alan Silvestri's score suffers a little in retrospect because a lot of it is so similar to his later score for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). If you ignore that, though, it's an interesting snapshot of a time when this kind of film's soundtracks were straddling the line between sound design and traditional orchestration. It's a good blend.

Verdict: GET TO THE CHOPPER!

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Imagine an excitable 12-year-old kid describing what an Arnold Schwarzenegger film was like.

That's pretty much what Commando is, and it's all the better for it. Indeed, many people say it's the quintessential Arnie film. It's got the OTT action, the ridiculous one-liners, scenery-chewing villains, bad guys who miss with every bullet, one enormous pair of gratuitous breasts…

The opening credits alone are hilarious, but like the rest of this film I honestly can't tell whether this is intentional or not.

Incidentally, perhaps because it's such a naff film, it's the only thing I've seen in which James Horner's horrible soundtrack actually works. Not speaking ill of the dead, here - just his music.

If you like Arnie films and are in the mood for some silliness, then you'll love this!

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

An atmospheric, New Wave-style portrayal of obsession.

Jake Gyllenhall's portrayal of Leo Bloom is excellent. He is simultaneously quirky, intelligent, naive, dangerous, grounded and frighteningly insane. It's certainly difficult not to admire Bloom's vision and drive.

Meanwhile, Riz Ahmed deserves no end of plaudits for his pitch-perfect performance - sympathetic and hilarious.

James Newton Howard's soundtrack fits very well here in the same way it did in It Follows (and not in The Guest)

If I have one criticism, it's that the passage of time in between scenes sometimes catches you out - you don't know whether it's the next day or a couple of weeks later. But that's a minor niggle.

My wife summed it up very well: "I really liked it... but it's horrible!"

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Apparently Tarkovsky had to reshoot a large portion of this film after the original stock was damaged. What was actually released is such a striking piece of work, it's hard to imagine what the original version might have been.

There is a plot: in a post-apocalyptic world, the "Stalker" is a man who guides people through a restricted Zone where the usual laws of physics and reason don't apply, and in which a room is said to exist that causes a man's deepest desires to come true. There is character development and gripping performances, particularly by Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy (Stalker) who really does seem to carry the weight of the world on the shoulders...

... but for a moment, forget all that. Instead, try watching Stalker as you'd watch, for example, a David Lynch film: think instead about the images presented on their own terms rather than trying to attach a conventional meaning to them, or put them into context.

Don't worry about what it means - just enjoy the experience.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Leprechaun: Origins

Two young American couples played by Canadians are backpacking through the Irish countryside, stumble upon an American Werewolf in London rip-off, and are left at the mercy of some bad camera work and some sort of half-arsed rotoscoping.

This is a bad film.  I knew I was in for a stinker when the production company logo came on screen: WWE Studios.  Yep.  The "wrestling" people. 

So how bad is it?  Well obviously you've bad acting, a cheesy script, very approximate Irish accents, two-dimensional characters, glaring factual errors, crap special effects, no sense of threat, over-use of jump scares and Lewton buses… but I think the best way of summing up how just how crap Leprechaun: Origins is, is the fact that people are on IMDb defending the honour of the original Leprechaun (1993) film!

That's all you need to know, really.  It's so poor, people are calling the original a "classic" by comparison.

Avoid.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

Nowt wrong with a good Tom Cruise action romp that doesn't take itself too seriously.

It's a strong enough film to stand up even without the much-hyped jet plane stunt - clearly the filmmakers were confident enough to get that out of the way right at the beginning. Of course the film benefits from the fact Cruise did all his own stunts and driving, but the plot and the performances from the rest of the cast kept my interest in between these impressive set-pieces.

The overall message of the film, of course, seems to be "USA continues to protect the world even though its allies are turning against her." *rolls eyes*

So anyway... It's a popcorn flick that doesn't disappoint. Nothing earth-shattering or genre-defining, but - unlike many films of this type - it never feels like it's been lazily made. Everybody involved seems keen to do a good job and be part of a decent end product.

I reckon there are three types of bad film.

There are the bad films that are just plain bad, like Waiting To Exhale (1995), Spider-Man 3 (2007) or Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989).

Then there are the ones that are So Bad They're Good, like The Room (2003), The Incredible Melting Man (1977) or Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959).

And then there's this third category. Films that are pretty rubbish, but which for some bizarre reason are really enjoyable - and not in an ironic way either. I would put Constantine (2005) in this category, and the wonderfully mental Lifeforce (1985)... and also this bizarre little horror gem.

It's like an cheap knock-off of Rosemary's Baby, complete with urban paranoia, things going bump in the night, a neurotic heroine and creepy neighbours. There are some genuine scares (such as Alison's dead father appearing in the night), and the cast is really quite astonishing (Martin Balsam, Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach, plus interesting cameos from Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum and - in a very uncomfortable scene - Beverly D'Angelo).

Meanwhile Christina Raines seems like someone who can act but chooses not to; Chris Sarandon seems like someone who can't act at all but doesn't know it, and Deborah Raffin is someone who probably should have got Christina Raines' part. I don't know... sometimes it feels as if Michael Winner was feeding the actors their lines as they went along!

The flashback scenes are mental (it's Michael Winner, after all), there's a fair bit of gratuitous nudity, some cheap gore, and the plot is - despite everything - intriguing, especially as we start to guess what Alison's fate might be.

It's definitely one to watch, but I'm not entirely sure why!

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

The Coen Brothers are in that rare stratum of writers/directors who seem to have formed a genre of their own. (Woody Allen, Hitchcock and Wes Anderson are other examples)

The argument over which is their greatest film will never be settled, but Fargo is surely a strong contender. The Coens always manage to create atmospheres that are simultaneously realistic and stylised; rarely comfortable. Here, in the relationship between Marge and Norm Gunderson, there's a rare glimpse of their "cozy" side - and it's wonderfully touching. Outside of that, however, the film is unsettling, occasionally vividly violent, and darkly comic.

The gradual disintegration of Jerry Lundegaard (William H Macy), as his spineless, cowardly plan unravels, and he flails against the ever-tightening net of his own lies, is a sight to behold, with the Macy playing the part absolutely perfectly - you almost feel sorry for him at first, but your sympathy runs out as the film continues.

Meanwhile, Frances McDormand plays Marge Gunderson, one of the most admirable police officers ever seen on screen - this is not a bumbling, dull-witted small-town copper. Nor is she the ace detective with a disastrous home life we see so often. An original, rounded character with depth, a history and a future.

Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare... well if they've turned in a bad performance between them on film I'm yet to see it.

It's a crime drama, a thriller, a dark comedy... but really the best description of Fargo is, It's a Coen Brothers Film.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

There aren't any films that have been based on board games. This was a childhood favourite of mine (both the game and the film).

There's something really satisfying about seeing good actors being silly. Tim Curry, of course, is a class act - a master in scenery-chewing who's right at home in this particularly manic role. Madeline Kahn always reminded me of Imelda Staunton with her perfectly- timed facial expressions; and Michael McKean is excellent as usual.

This film is more manic than the similar - but more sophisticated - Murder By Death (1976), and from my wife's reaction when watching it, I'm sure a lot of my fondness of it comes from enjoying it as a child... but I still say if you can stand the rather hysterical performances you'll be in for a treat - lots of great one-liners and memorable moments (Jane Wiedlin with the briefest of cameos as a singing telegram in particular). The alternative endings, too, are an enjoyable gimmick.

yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com