Wednesday 29 October 2014

The Purge


A simple enough siege story, set during a twelve hour period where all crime is legal, made hard to follow by the persistent voice in my head loudly intoning "BUT THAT MAKES. NO. FUCKING. SENSE."

The Phantom Of The Opera

 
Considerably duller than you'd expect from such a landmark.
 

Monday 27 October 2014

The Plank

 
Classic slice of British slapstick with a really big stick.
 

Sunday 26 October 2014

The Quiet Ones

 
A group of young scientists retreat to a house in the countryside to conduct an experiment that attempts to fuse together a Cronenberg movie and a 70s Amicus movie with mixed success.
 

Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages


An absolutely fascinating 1920s perspective on medieval witch mania via crazed reconstructions, sombre intertitles and a shitload of bizarre woodcuts.

Saturday 25 October 2014

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

 
TMNT becomes stranded in a soggy middle ground between a vocal audience who demand everything meets their expectation and a group of people making a film despite not having a fucking clue what they're doing.

The Mummy Returns

 
I remembered this as a silly romp. I had forgotten just how silly the romp was and how much it was slathered in video game level CGI.
 

Thursday 23 October 2014

The Mummy

 
Rollicking.
 

Tuesday 21 October 2014

The White Haired Witch Of Lunar Kingdom

 
Overblown nonsense, but with plenty of stylish fight sequences which meant I enjoyed the film no matter how much the ending demanded that I hate it.
 

The Face Of An Angel

 
Winterbottom's horror movie.
Also Winterbottom's Kaufman movie, Winterbottom's assessment of the Amanda Knox trial, Winterbottom's paean to Dante, Winterbottom's commentary on the film industry, Winterbottom's examination of mass media, Winterbottom's haunting study of separated families and, given how it all manages to neatly slot together, Winterbottom's Tetris.

Saturday 18 October 2014

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

 
A slasher movie that has ambitions to be far more. It's not entirely successful but amongst all the eye-rolling it illicits, the ever present aspiration should be applauded.

Near Death Experience

 
French comedy. A phrase which here means "A morbid examination of the pointlessness of living, laced with humour so dry it's practically dessicated."

Saturday 11 October 2014

Anabelle


So comically bad it's never more than two steps away from parody.

Wolf Creek 2

 
In which the crazed lunatic from the first film is reduced to spewing trite Kreuger-isms every time he pops up to dole out some ludicrously amplified death, which happens a few times before everything crashes to a halt with a totally absurd ending.
 

Friday 3 October 2014

Gone Girl

 
Less a film, more an excellent visualisation of a book that made me think that I should've maybe just read it instead of waiting for Fincher to spoon-feed it into my eyes.
 

Thursday 2 October 2014

The Incredible Hulk

 
Edward Norton is woefully miscast, making for terribly awkward dialogue as the film stumbles from one explosive cartoon action sequence to the next.
Charlotte said the film confused her because 'he kept saying they had no money but he always had loads of clothes'.