Sunday 30 September 2012

Carnage

 
A slick adaption of an apartment based stage play gives Polanski a chance to revist an early muse.

Saturday 29 September 2012

7 Days [Les sept jours du talion]


When the daughter of a mild mannered doctor is raped and murdered he inexplicably turns into a total prick in this dull, flat vengeance study made by somebody who is clearly unaware of Chan-Wook Park.

Thursday 27 September 2012

World's Greatest Dad

 
Scores the double whammy of being one of the bitterest bittersweet comedies i've ever seen and also one of the sweetest.

Tuesday 25 September 2012

Looper

 
Curiously static time travel yarn with a lull in the middle allowing a little too much time to consider the paradoxes but an ending good enough that they don't really matter.

Monday 24 September 2012

Killing Them Softly

 
An angry bark at the mess our wayward society has gotten us into along with a strong, clear message of reaping consequences for our actions, punctuated by extreme violence in slow motion.

Saturday 22 September 2012

ParaNorman [3D]

 
Scooby Doo references for the child, Vorhees and Akira for me. All bases covered.
 

Thursday 20 September 2012

Dead Hooker In A Trunk

 
Gleefully anarchic, micro budget insanity.

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Naked Weapon

 
A grim first half shows scores of kidnapped children abused as they are trained to be ruthless killers/catwalk models able to break a man's spine with one hand, who at adulthood are forced to kill each other off with impractically sized machetes in order to survive.
This bafflingly leads into a second half focussing on the romance that blooms between the only surviving assassin and a cop on sick leave when they accidentally get locked in an ice cream delivery truck together.

High Tech Soul: The Creation Of Techno Music

 
Not as insightful as I'd hoped it would be. More of a pat on the back for the founding fathers soundtracked by disappointingly brief snippets of superb techno.

Thursday 13 September 2012

Lawless

 
As you watch everything suggests you're watching a great movie but it's not particularly great at all. Just a good film that artificially appears great because you're watching it at a multiplex and it's not about superheroes or fidgety CGI or people being hopelessly retarded at each other.

Monday 10 September 2012

Dredd 3D


A perfect example of 'don't fuck with the source material and you will get a great film'. Here the source material is faithfully captured and the film is great.
Also a perfect example of 'if you're going to foist 3D on people then use it to show bullets exploding out of people's faces in extreme slow motion, soundtracked by ethereal post-rock'. Here the 3D is justified by... well, you get the idea.

Saturday 8 September 2012

Hellraiser: Hellseeker

Sixth installment in the franchise inexplicably apes its predecessor,the apalling Hellraiser: Inferno, by also being a blatant remake of Carnival Of Souls with some Cenobite action shoe-horned in to justify the title.
This is slightly better than Hellraiser: Inferno but then that's only really because Hellraiser: Inferno is so bad that I have fonder memories of childhood diseases than i do of Hellraiser: Inferno.

101 Dalmatians

 
Harmless fluff told well.

Thursday 6 September 2012

God Bless America

 
In which the blackest comedy spews forth from a savage diatribe of caustic hatred aimed unerringly at the hateful, stupid side of modern society.
Absolutely fucking brilliant.

Sunday 2 September 2012

Total Recall [2012 Remake]

 
It seems that halfway through somebody forgot that they were remaking Total Recall and began remaking I Robot instead, rendering this a nonsensical version of the original stripped of all ambiguity but with really nice production design.