July 29th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
DVD Viewing Journal |
no comments
Mr Bale’s been in the news a bit recently (you’ve probably noticed) and he’s also been making regular appearances on my DVD player this week as a warm up to seeing The Dark Knight at the IMAX cinema in Birmingham this coming Saturday
Equilibrium
This Orwellian tale is a better film that it probably has a right to be. Essentially 1984 done as an action movie, it benefits from a great cast, particularly Christian Bale, and some good action sequences. The Gun Fu idea manages to be both silly and incredibly cool at the same time and is about the films only original idea. To see what Equilibrium would have been like without Bale check out director Kurt Wimmer’s follow-up Ultraviolet.
The Machinist
How far should an actor go in pursuit of authentisity? Christian Bale goes above and beyond the call of duty in Brad Anderson’s film about an insomniac machine operator, to the point where you start to worry about his health. Bale, all skin and bones, gives a typically intense performance in this surreal story that avoids categorisation, being part drama, part thriller, part horror. It’s an excellent film that feels like something David Cronenberg might have dreamed up, which is high praise indeed.
July 2nd, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
DVD Viewing Journal |
no comments
Sometimes they’re cute and cuddly, like ET (or Jeff Bridges), but not all aliens are nice as this weeks viewing shows…
The Thing from Another World
There is much to enjoy in The Thing from Another World and then there’s James Arness’”Super Carrot”. The character interplay sparkles, although I could have done without having a woman stationed at the Arctic base (does a horror movie of this type really need a love interest?), and the isolated setting adds greatly to the sense of unease but then they show us too much of the monster and it all falls apart. It’s not fair to blame Big Jim, you could have put anyone in the veggiesuit and it would have looked silly. Important rule of horror moviemaking – if you have a crap monster don’t show it anymore than you have to.
Body Snatchers
I don’t know the background to this adaptation of Jack Finney’s novel of alien invasion but there’s certainly an unlikely combination of talent involved. Genre veteran Larry Cohen gets a credit for screen story while ‘Master of Horror’ Stuart Gordon is one of the scriptwriters and Abel Ferrara handles directorial duties. It seems an odd choice for Ferrara, a director who’s not exactly known for mainstream horror, more so as it followed his most famous film, Bad Lieutenant. He does a good job though and certainly creates more tension than the latest big budget take on the story, last years Invasion. If there’s a complaint it’s that it fails to make the most of its cast in particular Forest Whitaker and R. Lee Ermey, but Meg Tilly’s very good in her alien-stepmom role. The military base setting makes sense - surely alien invaders would target military installations? - and adds to the central characters feelings of isolation. Not the best (or even second best) version, but certainly a worth a look on a classic story.
