I own a bunch of DVDs, bought in charity shops, that I have never got round to watching. Well, life is short and who knows how long it lasts (it's later than you think etc etc), so I am going to watch and review (briefly) the lot. No idea how long this will take, because,... Continue Reading →
Film reviews (brief) – “Hard Boiled” and “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie”
Not two films that you would normally put together in a review but I have decided to write something - even if only a paragraph - about each film I watch. Hard Boiled (1992) was "fun" - all the John Woo balletic stuff, which looks dated because it has been so ripped off and riffed... Continue Reading →
Film review: The Long Walk – Top Marx for a Freudian Field Day
There are good films, beautifully made, which you probably will only watch the once. That's a niche category and for me there was only one - Paul Greengrass's 911 quasi-documentary United 93. Now there are two - The Long Walk, based on a 1979 Stephen King book. There is an obvious, perhaps even glib, way... Continue Reading →
Film review: An Awful Lee Big Adventure
Film: Lee Director: Ellen Kuras Time: interminable, but officially 1hr 52 mins There’s a film involving flashbacks, the Blitz and women figuring out who they are. Made in 1995 it was called An Awfully Big Adventure.. Kate Winslet wasn’t in it. There’s a film involving flashbacks, the Blitz and women figuring out … Winslet in... Continue Reading →
H3 vs CO2 – of Bob Brown, documentaries and our doom
The following blog post is about Bob Brown (the Australian activist and politician), documentaries and their function in wider social movements. Readers of a nervous - or G/green - disposition may want to look away... Two disclaimers/scene setters. First up, Bob Brown. The man is clearly a mensch, with oodles of physical and moral courage,... Continue Reading →
Film review: “Air” – of shoes, capitalism and fetishes (sort of)
Saw the Ben Affleck/Matt Damon/Viola Davis film "Air" today. It tells a version of the story of how, in 1984, the footwear company Nike signed then-rookie basketball player Michael Jordan and made a tonne of money (actually, probably several hundred tonnes of money) by creating a shoe that would get everyone buyin'. Short version -the... Continue Reading →
Film review: Top Gun Maniac, I mean, “Maverick” – the right stuff and the age of “innocence”
Short review of long (130 minutes?) film. This very well-made film is a paean to a "simpler" time, when America was king of the world. The whole thing is drenched in various nostalgias and yearnings for (mythical) pasts that are not actually compatible, but the whole thing is moving at Mach 10 (or 10.3 in... Continue Reading →
Film review: “Old” is just that, old hat…
Take a bit of Westworld (the Yul Brinner movie, not the TV show). Take a bit of the forgotten 1996 medical thriller Extreme Measures (Gene Hackman, Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker). Take a bit of an even-more forgotten schlock novel from the 1970s called "The Glow" and a few other old off-cuts. There, you've got... Continue Reading →
Film review: The name is “Widow, Black Widow…” Of Scarlet, James, Karl and Hugo…
Film review: Yeah, look, if you're looking for some relatively undemanding and competently made tosh, with a not-entirely-convincing feminist "sub"text (i.e. smacking-you-in-the-face-text), with some eye-candy and moments of levity, then Black Widow will fit the Bill - or, more aptly, the James. Scarlett Johansson climbs into her latex suit again (I have not seen her... Continue Reading →
Sorry to Bother You, but you should defo see Sorry to Bother You
This is a film where, with some reservations, you should believe the hype. From the bravura opening scene, where we see the desperate hero's job interview lies get ruthlessly exposed, through to the deeply weird and unsettling climax, this socialist parable is a scabrous and strange attack on, well, almost everything. Your jaw will be... Continue Reading →
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