David Ayer’s gritty cop drama puts us right at the heart of the action, and delivers an innovative new take on the old cliches.
Category: review
In The Loop: X&HT Saw Looper
Looper is one of those films that’s designed to start arguments in pubs after a screening.
Livin’ La Vida Loca: X&HT Saw The Imposter
If you tried selling the story of The Imposter as a drama, people would never go for it.
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Happy Families: X&HT Saw Splice
Coincidence fascinates me. I mean, I don’t believe there’s anything in it. It’s clearly just my brain mapping meaning and pattern onto unrelated events. But it’s still fun when it happens.
As a serial procrastinator, it’s taken me the best part of six months to get engineers out to look at the stuttery HD playback on our plusbox. When I finally did so, it took less than five minutes to sort, and I was left with a more open schedule for my day than I’d planned. So, I had a bit of a browse on our newly sprightly V+ feed, and found a block of free movies, including one I’d missed on its limited UK release–Vincenzo Natali’s bio-sci-horror Splice.
The coincidence kicked in as the credits rolled and I realise that the film starred Sarah Polley, director of the most excellent Take This Waltz that I raved about earlier in the week. The two films could not be more different. Take This Waltz is a delicate, precise parody of chick flick clichés. Splice is… Well, it’s bugshit crazy, in a very good way indeed.
This Is Not A Love Song: X&HT Saw Take This Waltz
In a lot of ways, romantic fiction is all about making excuses for infidelity. There are no end of stories out there that feature a main character trapped in a loveless marriage, only to be swept off her feet and out of the door by a dashing hero archetype. The spineless schlub of a husband shrugs, smiles and lets her go, content to let the caged bird fly. She's a free spirit and she deserves more than he can offer because… because she's the heroine, OK?
Sarah Polley's amazing new film Take This Waltz applies an overdue stress-test to the cliches, with a simplicity and honesty that's rare in the chick-flick world.
Continue reading This Is Not A Love Song: X&HT Saw Take This Waltz
A Swinging Time: X&HT saw The Amazing Spider-Man
Comics are soap opera. Characters don’t change. If they die, it’s hardly ever permanent. Their origins are constantly retold, reinforced, raked over for any new tiny scrap of resonance. Some critics have griped that The Amazing Spider-man, the fourth movie about Peter Parker and his penchant for going out in red Underoos, is a rehash of Sam Raimi’s 2002 film.
They’re missing the point. This kind of thing happens in the funny papers all the time.
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Sheets For Screens: A Night At The BraineHownd Awards
Mark Brown paces around outside the Hideaway Bar. The brim of his trademark fedora is low, but the shadow it casts can’t disguise the worried look on his face. His go-to guy has bailed on him at short notice. Which means that, if the emergency back up plan doesn’t pan out, he’s going to have to find a way of running his popular film night without a projector.
He glances back at the rapidly filling bar behind him. He’s had better days.
Continue reading Sheets For Screens: A Night At The BraineHownd Awards
End Of The Century – X&HT Read LOEG: Century 2009
A common complaint levied at Moore and O’Neill’s League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen books, especially in the later stages of the story that are chronicled in the Century stories, is their impenetrable metatextuality.
It’s really easy to tie yourself in knots when you discuss LOEG. I mean, just look at that first sentence. Impenetrable metatextuality? Good grief. Way to lose an audience. Let’s try this again. In English.
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Three Flash Film Reviews
I spent my Jubilee bank holiday in the most appropriate way possible: avoiding any and all Jubilee celebrations. I think the flotilla might have been on in the background while I was running a salsa playlist through Spotify. At least, I seem to have a memory of a very damp choir and a lot of boats moving extremely slowly down the Thames. Must have been riveting.
Anyway. As a result of successful avoidance tactics, I spent a lot of time in the cinema this week. Rather than drag out three long posts (in one particular example it would be very easy indeed to spin off into major rant mode) I thought I’d do a more condensed version. Three films, 200 words a piece. Here we go.
Without Subtitles
Sticking to the Gallic theme, I’m pleased to announce that the last short film I graded is now complete. Without Subtitles is a Simon Aitken joint, a bitter shot of love, betrayal, deceit, and the cruelty of language.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 