Small Screen: The Pacific: Hell Was An Ocean Away
Posted on Monday March 15, 2010, 22:12 by James White in Small Screen
The latest World War Two miniseries from Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and much of the team who brought us 2001’s Band Of Brothers landed on American screens Sunday night, launched with a ringing, library footage reminder of why America got into the conflict: Pearl Harbor. I’ll answer one of the big, pressing questions up front: is it as good as Band Of Brothers? My response is I simply don’t know yet. Eschewing access to screeners, I’m watching each episode as it airs, savouring the experience of seeing it in 10 chunks and avoiding spoilers as much as possible to see how the story unfolds naturally. Unlike Brothers, which threw you straight in with Easy Company and stacked up any number of similarly-uniformed, mud-caked faces to try to recognise and familiarise yourself with straight away, The Pacific has learned from this minor downside and instead focuses on three characters – veteran John Basilone (Jon Seda), writer/machine-gunner Robert Leckie (James Badge Dal... Continue reading... Comment Now (9 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: So What Do These Oscars Mean For Women In Hollywood?
Posted on Thursday March 11, 2010, 16:42 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
It's been a few days now since the 2010 Academy Awards finally saw a woman (only the fourth nominated) take home the Best Director and Best Picture prizes. Speech of the night, by pretty much anyone's reckoning, also went to a woman - Best Actress winner Sandra Bullock. A few cautiously laudatory articles about women in Hollywood have followed - here and here for example - but they all feel a little forced. Here's the thing: Kathryn Bigelow's win is a great thing for her, a well-deserved acknowledgment of a brilliantly made film that never got its due. And Sandra Bullock's the most likeable actress in Hollywood, a star whose classiness during awards season (even turning up to collect her Razzie) just confirms the impression that she's a lovely person - and she's a very good actress, whether in dramatic turns in the lik... Continue reading... Comment Now (11 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Secret Cinema: The Experience
Posted on Wednesday March 3, 2010, 12:08 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
This weekend, I finally went along to see something I've been hearing about for ages: Secret Cinema, the event where they don't tell you what you're going to see but you go along anyway. And while my verdict's mixed, I do think this has massive potential for film fans, because most of my objections were specific to the event I attended. The deal is this: after ponying up your wodge of cash (and it is a bit of a wodge), you are told where to head about two days before the scheduled screening. In addition to a time and place, we were assigned identity cards, in German and referencing the DDR (immediately prompting me to start speculating about The Lives Of Others, The Baider-Meinhoff Complex and Goodbye Lenin), which we were supposed to bring along. Turning up to Shepherd's Bush on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I found a massive queue of people headed for the venue, which had a big sign outside reading Potsdamer Platz in case anyone was still in doubt (yes, that should maybe have give... Continue reading... Comment Now (3 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: You don't have to be infected with a virulent, killer disease to work here. But it helps.
Posted on Monday March 1, 2010, 09:27 by Nev Pierce in Empire States
Death is the villain you can't beat. Infection is the villain you can beat, slice, mash and shoot repeatedly in the head. Infection makes for great cinema. OK, infection makes for OK cinema, mostly... with occasional stabs at greatness. But it's spreading. Today, you have a choice in your Disease Of The Week movie. There's Extraordinary Measures, which reviewers tell us is essentially 105 minutes of Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser trying to out-scowl each other in the quest to cure Pompe disease (something to do with over-spending until your football club is on the verge of bankruptcy). Or you can catch The Crazies, in which an accidentally applied government bio-weapon turns a town of hick Yanks into fury-fuelled simpletons who keep trying to kill each other. Yes, apparently, this is different from usual. The Crazies is a remake of George Romero's '70s shocker. Not only has Romero made - in Night, Dawn & Day Of The Dead - three of the best films ever about death (ea... Continue reading... Comment Now (10 comments)
Back To TopUnder The Radar: JDIFF DAY 11 - Alice In Wonderland, and closing with I Am Love
Posted on Monday March 1, 2010, 08:59 by Sam Toy in Under The Radar
 Our eleven days of film-related fun are at an end – for 2010, at least, and this year’s Jameson Dublin International Film Festival has now drawn to a close. For me, it went out in style with an early screening of Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland. To say I’ve heard mixed reviews about this is putting it mildly, so I went in with serious reservations. But I’m not a purist for the books, so I suspect that both of these elements helped me to find it a a mostly enjoyable family film; the all-ages audience seemed to feel the same (and bless the munchkin who was audibly amazed by the 3Dification of the Walt Disney logo at the beginning, which really set things up nicely).
You'll probably go to see this regardless, so I’ll be brief. Things worth shelling out £10 for: Helena Bonham Carter, and one of the best ensemble voice casts ever (special amongst them, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Paul Whitehouse). Things to brace yourself for: Johnny Depp doing a cute, ... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: JDIFF DAY 10 - ...and we're back: Kenneth Anger and Savage
Posted on Sunday February 28, 2010, 09:35 by Sam Toy in Under The Radar
 I have to admit, the distraction of being hastily called away to shoot a short film was an enjoyable one, but I’m regretting how much great stuff I’ve missed out on since being away from Dublin this week. What, exactly? For starters, the chance to revisit my second favourite movie of 2010 thus far, I Love You Phillip Morris, an early peek at the much anticipated sequel to Todd Solondz’s Happiness that is Life In Wartime, a well-received documentary from ‘the Italian Michael Moore’ taking potshots at the Berlusconi administration with Videocracy, and the brilliant Lebanon, plus rare big screen airings of the likes of La Dolce Vita, one-take wonder (okay, not really, but you know what I mean) Russian Ark, and Eyes Without A Face. The thing I’m really kicking myself for missing, though? The concert celebrating the film music of Nino Rota, which played to a rapturous crowd at the National Concert Hall. Here’s hopi... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopEmpire States: The Trouble With Michael Moore
Posted on Sunday February 21, 2010, 09:00 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
 On most things that matter, I agree with Michael Moore. I think that mass gun ownership is more likely to produce social harm than social good. I think the provision of universal health care is a moral issue and private health care is just horrific. I think - stop me if I'm too controversial here - Bush was a bad President and some bankers deserve a good slap upside the head. I really, really wish I could sing Moore's praises to the heavens for his films tackling these subjects, but the damn movies make it impossible.
While I’m willing to give most of Bowling for Columbine and sections of Sicko a pass, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Capitalism: A Love Story are two of the biggest missed opportunities in modern cinema history. For the love of Zeus, the former was targeted at George W. Bush; the latter at the fricking banking industry, in 2009! There are no bigger sitting ducks, and yet Moore wandered in, scattered buckshot wildly in all directions and missed the damn d... Continue reading... Comment Now (8 comments)
Back To TopUnder The Radar: JDIFF DAY 3 - Falling for Capitalism: A Love Story
Posted on Sunday February 21, 2010, 00:57 by Sam Toy in Under The Radar
 I was feeling like I was the only person in the world (or at least on the festival circuit) who hadn't seen Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, so Day 3 of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival was my chance to make amends. I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t expecting huge things from it - possibly because his style has become so familiar, or maybe because his profile is large enough for his opponents to see him coming these days; whatever the reason, it turns out I'd underestimated this one. I’m still evaluating it, but it may be Moore’s strongest film since Bowling For Columbine.
After the basically solid but ever-so-slightly underwhelming Sicko, and with his nemesis leaving the White House, Moore must have been nervously biting his nails in search of a target. A sane man would be President once again - tough times for a crusading domestic documentary maker. But then the financial crisis erupted. Oh, how that angry little part of his... Continue reading... Comment Now (1 comment)
Back To TopUnder The Radar: JDIFF 2010 - DAY 2: back to 1981 with Salvador and L'Affaire Farewell
Posted on Saturday February 20, 2010, 00:33 by Sam Toy in Under The Radar
 Ask anyone who was there, even as a kid, and they’ll tell you the Reagan years were a particularly dark period in world politics; he was a reactionary old fool who most people were glad to see the back of. And yes, I’ve re-written that sentence to avoid being sued by his estate. Still, no matter how painful the memory, it’s always good to be reminded of past mistakes, and today I was delivered a double dose from the early years of the Decade Of Shame – two features, and by coincidence, both set in 1981.
The first was a bit of a surprise, which I had overlooked on my earlier perusal of the programme: Oliver Stone’s Salvador. I’m still not sure which stream of JDIFF this belongs to (my guess is it’s part of their ‘Out Of The Past’ section), but I’m certainly glad it was included, for a couple of reasons. First, it now serves as a testament to the theory of “the more things change...” - America playing with puppet dictato... Continue reading... Comment Now (4 comments)
Back To TopUnder The Radar: The Jameson Dublin Film Festival 2010: Opening Night
Posted on Friday February 19, 2010, 10:40 by Sam Toy in Under The Radar
 I landed in Dublin this afternoon to crisp, cool conditions – albeit one up on London for at least having intermittent blue sky and patches of sunshine - which helped get the Jameson DIFF (a good one for fans of acronyms) off to an enthusiastic start. The opening night film was Neil Jordan’s latest, Ondine, which played to a full house as excited as you would expect to see a film shot entirely just down the road (I noticed several people around me excitedly nudge their partners/family members when a certain extra made a fleeting appearance). After the introductory speeches and a tribute to late local festival hero and champion of Irish cinema Michael Dwyer, Jordan and his star Colin Farrell introduced their co-stars and the film.
Selkies, the seal people of Celtic folklore, seem to have an instant and obvious appeal for the family film – off the top of my head I can think of at least two other solid films within the genre to feature these mythological creatu... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To Top
|
