January 31st, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Action, Comic Book, Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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The problem with Superman is that he’s Superman. He’s almost omniscient and it’s hard to find a worthy challenge for him. Superman II manages it by pitting him against three Kryptonian villains, each with powers equal to his own.
When I first saw Superman II at the cinema I thought it a better film than the original. As a fifteen year old comic geek it had what the first film lacked, namely super villains. For the first time we got to see a real Superhero vs. Supervillain knock-down-drag-out fight. There were faults - the romance with Margot Kidder never really worked for me (and still doesn’t) and Superman’s mum lying to him that, after choosing to become human, he can never go back, was always a pretty big plot hole.
The forty-three year old comic geek who just watched the film still loves the fight scenes (although some of the effects seem a little less special than they used to) and Terence Stamp and Sarah Douglas are still excellent bad guys (even if General Zod does go a bit Cockney at times, particularly the TV broadcast from the White House).
Now though I can also see the faults - sllly comedy moments and some ropy dubbing (how many characters does Shane Rimmer voice?), Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor completely superfluous to the plot, too little Ned Beatty, E.G. Marshall’s atrocious wig. Plus the whole Superman becoming human (for all of about five minutes) subplot isn’t really needed. The film runs over two hours, not as long as the first film, but then that had to tell the origin story, with Superman not making an appearance until an hour into the film. Superman II could have been trimmed by about thirty minutes and not lost anything of importance.
January 30th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Movie Reviews, Thriller |
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Watching this 1931 version of the classic tale was like watching a movie reflected in a funhouse mirror, everything’s there it’s just a little distorted. Ricardo Cortez is an oilier, smarmier Spade, much less likable than Bogie’s take on the role, Otto Matieson is a taller, yet less threatening Dr. Cairo than Peter Lorre, Dudley Digges is a less rotund Casper Gutman than Sydney Greenstreet…the list goes on.
With one exception the cast in the later, more famous version, were superior, that exception being Dwight Frye. If you wanted barking mad then Dwight was the man to call in 1931, appearing as Renfield in Dracula and Fritz in Frankenstein, in The Maltese Falcon though he’s a much more subtle loony, playing Gutman’s pet killer, Wilmer. He doesn’t get a lot of dialogue and has to do most of his acting with his eyes, but he gives the impression he could explode at any moment.
While it’s always going to take second place to John Huston’s version this was still very entertaining, more so for being pre-Hays Code and therefore a little racier than you might expect.
One of the rare occasions where the original isn’t the best.
January 30th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Drama, Movie Reviews, War |
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Given the tragic death of Heath Ledger last week this film sort of picked itself out of the pile of DVDs I‘ve got lined up for this series. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Ledger’s work, of the seventeen films he made (eighteen with The Dark Knight) I’ve only seen eight and, while he was certainly a good actor, he was often overshadowed by his co-stars - Mel Gibson in The Patriot, Billy Bob Thornton in Monster’s Ball and Paul Bettany in A Knight’s Tale - but I’ve yet to see his most acclaimed performance in Brokeback Mountain.
A.E.W. Mason’s novel has been filmed no less than seven times but I’d only seen the classic 1939 version with Ralph Richardson and John Clements prior to watching this. Given that the film has an Indian director in Shekhar Kapur it would be fair to expect a slightly different take on this tale of love and daring-do in the days of the British Empire than previous versions, and, in that regard, the film doesn’t disappoint.
While it shares the central love triangle with previous takes, this isn’t a film about heroics but rather the horrors of war, with the British no better than The Mahdi and his followers, and certainly more arrogant. Rather than being about Harry Faversham’s quest to regain his honour after his friends brand him a coward, the film uses that as a devise to show the suffering war brings and how it brings out the worst in men.
January 29th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Action, Movie Reviews, Thriller |
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This, the second Bond film, one I never really liked that much when I was younger. It lacked the gadgets (unless you count 007’s attaché case, and I didn’t), the diabolical mastermind (unless you count Blofeld stroking his pussy, and, as we don’t even see his face, I didn’t) and said master criminal’s hidden lair (Bond’s final confrontation is with a small Russian woman in a hotel room!)
Yet it’s now one of my favourites and for many of the same reasons. Coming before the series found its formula (that would come with the next film, Goldfinger) it stands out from the rest. Things don’t really get moving until Bond boards the Orient Express in the films action packed second half. This section is one long chase, first in the claustrophobic environs of the train, then by truck, and. finally, in the first of the series spectacular boat sequences. The film has more in common here with North by Northwest than anything in the subsequent Bond films, but of course 007 is no innocent victim.
The film may lack a lead villain but it does have one of the all time great henchmen in the macho form of Robert Shaw’s SPECTRE agent Grant. With so much testosterone on display it’s hardly surprising Connery and Shaw wanted to do their own fight scene, and it gives the sequence a raw brutal quality, aided by the close confines of the confrontation, that’s never been equalled. Both stars no doubt nursed a few bruises (in private of course).
January 27th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Drama, Science Fiction |
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Aiming for the cool indie weirdness of Repo Man, The Big Empty comes up way short. Its title is half right though, the film isn’t big but it certainly is empty.
To go into the details of the plot would be pointless, it’s both convoluted and at the same time vacuous. It feels like writer/director Steve Anderson woke up one morning and decided to write the most outlandish tale he could just for the sake of it. The film is populated by oddball characters from an FBI agent/frustrated actor to a cowboy clad serial killer but none of it has any real point.
Some of the performances aren’t bad, Kelsey Grammer has fun playing it straight as the FBI man and Sean Bean gets a dry run for The Hitcher as an English cowboy nutjob. But it’s all just wasted effort in a film as pointless as this.
The best thing about the film (by a long, long way) is the soundtrack, with both the songs (from Lazy Lester and John Lee Hooker amongst others) and Brian Tyler’s score providing more pleasure than anything in the film. This is one DVD that should have had a music only track.
January 27th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Movie Reviews, Westerns |
one comment
Burt Lancaster as a Mexican! The idea probably sounds ridiculous…I mean Burt looks about as Mexican as George W. Bush does an Arab…and yet, a bit of make-up and a first class performance and Burt becomes Bob Valdez, ex-cavalry scout and current lawman (on the Mexican side of town of course).
Many a ‘70s western mirrored hot topics in the here and then, with Viet Nam an obvious target (Soldier Blue and Ulzana’s Raid). It’s not war but race that’s at the heart of Valdez is Coming and considering it offers up a black man murdered for a crime he didn’t do, a pregnant Indian woman now a homeless widow and the browbeaten, and later just plain beaten, Bob Valdez, you’d have to be a little slow on the uptake not to get the film’s message.
For all that the film doesn’t feel preachy, the subtext never getting in the way of what is a damn fine action western. In lesser hands Valdez’s transformation from submissive lawman to a one man guerrilla army would be ridiculous (particularly for someone of his advanced years) but Lancaster makes it real. Bob knows the land, knows the people and, most importantly, knows how to handle a gun (he carries a small arsenal) and Burt, in the way he handles that array of weapons, the way he moves and interacts with the environment, makes it all real.
January 27th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Drama, Martial Arts, Movie Reviews |
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It’s been a while since I’ve watched any of the Zatoichi films and with half the series still waiting to be discovered I though it was about time to renew my acquaintance with the blind swordsman.
This is the thirteenth in the series and features everything I’ve come to expect - a beautiful woman fallen on hard times, a masterless samurai, an evil Yakuza boss with a seemingly endless supply of henchmen, superb swordplay (with a trick or two from Zatoichi) and plenty of eating and drinking. If there’s one thing our blind masseur enjoys it’s filling his belly.
They say it a fine line between comedy and tragedy and Shintaro Katsu straddles it brilliantly in these films. He’ll make you laugh one minute and bring you close to tears the next, not to mention displaying his own unique sword fighting style.
While Ichi leaves a trail of dead and wounded in his wake the fight scenes are oddly bloodless. This film features a rare (at least up to this point in the series) glimpse of the red stuff, not as you might expect, as Zatoichi slices and dices his way through the bad guys, but from a nose bleed he suffers while taking a beating.
While the films may be as formulaic as the Bond movies in the west, they are always watchable thanks to Katsu as the downtrodden blind man who always wins the fights but can never seem to find happiness.
January 25th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Drama, Horror, Movie Reviews |
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Two thirds of the way through this atmospheric Korean horror I was struck by a feeling that I’d seen something similar and not too long ago at that. It took a few minutes for the old grey matter to make the connection, the fact that the two films, at first glance, wouldn’t seem to have much in common no doubt slowing it down some, but it finally produced the answer - Spider. “What could David Cronenberg’s drama about a schizophrenic man have in common with A Tale of Two Sisters?” you may be thinking…or possibly “Ian’s finally cracked up, better call the men in white coats”. Before you make a booking for me in a padded room let me explain…
Both films chuck you in at the deep end and expect you to swim, by which I mean they don’t go the usual route of explaining who everyone is, how they got where they are and, well, basically setting the scene for what’s to come. It’s up to the viewer to figure things out; this of course requires the use of something often neglected by modern moviemakers - a brain. All too often these days we are encouraged to “leave your brain at home” when paying a visit to the cinema, as this will impair our enjoyment of the movie, so it’s nice to watch a film every now and then that doesn’t require a lobotomy to get the most out of it.
January 24th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Action, Comic Book, Fantasy, Movie Reviews |
one comment
The Death Note of the title is a book with the power to kill, all you need to do is write your targets name inside and hey presto! they’re history. Of course there are some conditions; you need to know what they look like for one - if for example you wanted John Smith to die, how’s the book going to know which John Smith is your intended target? On the plus side you can even pick the time and method of departure for your victim.
When this book comes into the possession of Light Yagami, a law student who’s lost his faith in the legal system, he uses it to dispatch criminals the system, for one reason or another, has been unable to convict. He’s like The Punisher with a pen, no need to get your hands dirty when all you have to do is scribble in a book.
The authorities are understandably not too happy with this one man judge, jury and executioner (dubbed Kira by the press) but how far will Light go to protect his secret identity? The “god of death” Ryuuk, the original source of the book, is Light’s sole confidant. Only someone who has touched the book can see Ryuuk, who looks like a Goth version of The Joker with wings.
January 23rd, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Movie Reviews, Thriller |
no comments
Moto is more spy than detective this time out, working to stop an uprising against the French government in Cambodia. He’s aided by two American filmmakers and a beautiful female pilot whose plane crashes close to where Moto is posing as an archaeologist.
As with the other films in the series the budget is limited, the acting variable and the direction uninspired. In fact there’s only one reason for watching these - Peter Lorre. If you’re a fan (as I am) this will be a fun sixty minutes, as Lorre again shows us the contrasting sides to the Japanese detective - charming around friends but a cold blooded killer when required. He’s like a mini Asian James Bond with the added talent of being a master of disguise.
This is the fourth film in the series and by far the most light-hearted of the three I’ve seen. I actually watched it out of sequence by mistake, Mr. Moto’s Gamble should have been next, but as there’s no character development through the series, and no recurring characters other than Moto, I doubt it matters.
