the hunt for red october (1990)
not my usual sort of film, but interesting none the less. alec baldwin is great in the part that harrison ford and ben affleck (and perhaps ryan gosling?) would later go onto portray, but sean connery plays the same role he plays in everything and just comes across as lazy. the technique used to control … Read more
i’ve loved you so long (2008)
many have referred to sean penn winning the academy award for best actor as an “upset”. many referred to the exclusion of ”the dark knight” from this years big awards as an “upset”. i myself deemed the lack of a nomination for bruce springsteen and his eponymously titled theme to “the wrestler” as an ”upset”. … Read more
oss 117 : cairo nest of spies (2008)
this gallic pseudo-satire of the james bond genre proved to be a great experience. the film combined all out spoof with drama and action to create a film that i enjoyed thoroughly. strangely, the oss 117 series predates the bond series by some years, hence the tag of pseudo-satire. jean dujardin, a former french talent … Read more
the pianist (2003)
roman polanski’s oscar winning film boasts perhaps my favourite oscar winning performance of modern times, in the shape of adrian brody. having not seen the film for quite some time, it was with the recent oscars in mind that i looked to ”the pianist” again. as iv grown older the attrocities on display have grown … Read more
the young victoria (2009)
emily blunt stars as queen victoria in this martin scorsese produced pseudo-biopic. french filmmaker jean-marc vallée helms a competent enough picture, that is pleasingly enough while it lasts, but leaves little in the way of after effect. emily blunt and paul bettany both provide great performances, with rupert friend as prince albert being the key … Read more
post oscar 2009 report
well our predictions werent too bad (although i am aware that beth beat me in best director!). in hindsight sean penn was a much safer bet than expected, with him taking the SAG award and whatnot, but it was still a shock to see roure lose out. i did love penn in ”milk” though, and … Read more
the shining (1980)
another jack nicholson performance, and another tour de force. the scale of madness on display in kubrick’s stephen king adaptation is awe-inspiring. i looked to “the shining” for academic reasons on this occasion, im looking at symetrical screening, and this is a great example of it. the camerawork, the framing and the editing of this … Read more
firefox (1982)
a surprisingly successful attempt at post-star wars casual science fiction for clint eastwood, with the film boasting a much more experimental element than one would have expected. eastwood fuses casual sci-fi with the espionage thrillers he was familiar with at the time of the films production to combine a winning formula. the advertised notion of … Read more
oscar predictions 2009
with it being the oscars this weekend, my girlfriend and i decided to do a bit of a sweepstakes as to the results. she hasnt seen most of the films so we kept to the big categories. we also employed the will/should/should have been nominated rule too. best actor -bethan;should- mickey rourke- the wrestlerwill- mickey … Read more
capturing the friedmans (2003)
for a long time in the years following its release ”capturing the friedmans”, andrew jerecki’s film charting the disintegration of a seemingly normal middle class family held the honour of being my favourite documentary of all time. alas that isnt necessarily true, having not seen the film for a while its importance had flailed in … Read more
