Cinema - Latest Comments

Page 1 of 25 : Previous : Next :

Member	Movie		Comment / Review
zabadak 2nd Nov 2024		Terrifier 2 (2022)	Review Guardian review :read: ✔︎ Helpful Review?
zabadak 1st Nov 2024		Hausu (1977)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
zabadak 1st Nov 2024		Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
zabadak 1st Nov 2024		Barbie (2023)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
zabadak 1st Nov 2024		Stop Making Sense (1984)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
zabadak 1st Nov 2024		Nope (2022)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
Magic Marmalade 28th Oct 2024		The NeverEnding Story (1984)	Rated 8/10 Still completely wonderful! I have not seen this since I was made to go and see it at the cinema with my mum's co-worker, who took me and her - as it turned out - not only sickly, but terminally ill son when it came out... (Let's see... I would have been nine years old at the time) ... And as if this fact was not bummer enough, there are some emotionally stretching moments here that for children of that age, as anyone already familiar with this movie will know, can be devastating to younger hearts and minds. And for both of these reasons, I've wilfully avoided watching it since. But now, as the nights draw in, and I feel exhausted watching new (to me, at least) movies, I feel I'm in the season where I need a little nostalgia, and something cosy and familiar, as well as being prompted by the urge to see if itwould still "get me" the way it it did first time around. And while I do come to this now, with adult mind and soul, a little more objectively, this wonderful, magical fable of the relationship between fantasy and reality has lost none of it's imaginative potency, and still elicited a tear or two... or maybe there was just something in my eye. While one particularly devastating scene (You know the one!) didn't quite reduce me to a blubbering mess the way it did when I was nine, it still made me go: "Ooh, that's a bit heavy to handle for kids!". But the tale of a magical book, discovered by a bullied child who has lost his mother, and can't connect, or be sympathised with by his matter of fact father, and which causes him to escape into the world of magical fantasy still resonates to this day... more so, perhaps, in such all too real times as these. Great practical effects, animatronics, and puppetry, well shot, and the story well told, in the finest traditions of the most earnest, un-cynical and non-meta fairy-tales of old, and time immemorial, still help to push aside the self referential, cynical , or all too real times in which we live. So if, like me, you may be older now, or not having seen this for a good long spell, or think, even, that maybe you've grown out of this kind of thing a long time since... I'd urge you to revisit it again, perhaps for old time's sake, or even Auld Lang Sine. Consider it a guilty pleasure, or even a much needed, long neglected treat. Go on!... you deserve it! :) (It maybe that you need it too :) 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 28th Oct 2024		Lawman (1971)	Rated 9/10 Absolutely brilliant! Those of us in the UK who were only familiar with Michael Winner being on the telly often, and principally known only (it seemed) for those God-awful Death Wish films, would never suspect he was capable of making anything like this! This, on first impressions, seems like it's going to be pretty standard western fare... a vehicle for established Hollywood star to be the hero... roll into town, clean up the bad guys, before riding off into the sunset after a job well done... ...Except here, they've turned the whole thing on it's head, the titular "Lawman" is more the bad guy than the supposed baddies. Subsequent research reveals that the inspiration for the script for this was a quy read a quote to the effect that: "The only real hired killers in the west were the Lawmen" (paraphrased / misremembered), and that they often caused more trouble than they solved, if not actually were the source of the trouble in the first place. It jumps straight in with the incident that causes all the hoo-ha from then on, as a bunch of cowboys get drunk in a town, shooting all over, as is the common trope and an old man gets accidentally killed during this incident. But then we get to the ranch owner played thoughtfully, meditatively, even philosophically by Lee J. Cobb, who contrary to the usual pure evil overlord type you see in this role, is perfectly willing to make reparations to the townsfolk, for what his ranch-hands have done, as are the, again, counter-to-trope cowboys in his employ - all fully fleshed out characters, and proper humans, as opposed to the ye-ha! types we usually see here, and it even seems the townsfolk are willing to go along with it to. All very reasonable, so far. ...Except, then Burt Lancaster, who gives an excellent performance as a coldly indifferent "lawman" shows up to see the law has it's pound of flesh. - He is all, and exclusively duty, and by the book, and is deaf to all other considerations, even if it would defuse this whole situation from the outset, and he is constantly advised to do so by all and sundry, but nothing is going to dissuade him. The whole thing spirals out of control, with the Townsfolk deciding to do something about him administering the law, even at the expense of justice, and even the local Marshal (Played brilliantly by Robert Ryan) tries to talk him out of making a mess by pursuing this course, but Burt ain't having none of it... he's almost like the Anti-Terminator, fighting for what he sees as the good, ruthlessly relentlessly, and without a grain of compromise. In the end, it's a tragedy, of how being too "by the book", and un-merciful can see justice, in the true sense, fall by the wayside. A real Winner. 4 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		Smile (2022)	Independent review :read:
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		The Wild Robot (2024)	Independent review :read:
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		Team America: World Police (2004)	Independent article - 20 years on :read:
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		The Apprentice (2024)	Independent review :read:
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		Candyman (1992)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		Hellraiser (1987)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		Past Lives (2023)	..
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		Passages (2023)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
zabadak 23rd Oct 2024		Let Me Die A Woman (1977)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
Magic Marmalade 20th Oct 2024		Last Tango In Paris (1972)	Rated 9/10 A movie with a bad reputation, for all the wrong reasons. One I've been meaning to see for some years, mainly to see what all the fuss was about. General, common cultural consciousness will hold this in a place of infamy due to proclaimed obscenity, and lately, a controversy over one of it's most infamous scenes, and the making of that scene. And while I find myself on that side of the fence where if I know something icky has happened on the set during the making of it, it colours my view of the movie as a whole, in this case, and quite in spite of myself, I come out the other side if this convinced it's a masterpiece.. as a movie, and as a piece of storytelling. The story of a lost man who's wife has recently committed suicide, for reasons he can't understand, leaving him broken, confused, and kind of in freefall, meeting a much younger woman / girl in a flat, as she is looking for a place, and setting in motion almost instantly a questionable, and purely sexual relationship is, it seems, now that I have seen it, wholly misinterpreted, and the reputation it has for "obscene" scenes wildly over-exaggerated. Admittedly, the opening scene of their meeting and first sexual encounter would surely be considered rape, as would the scene with the butter stick (I'll say nay more on that!), as well as the scene when she sticks her fingers up Brando's ass, but as with the shower scene in Psycho, it's more about what we know is going on, than what it actually shows... (The girl is frequently nude, but only ,mostly from the waist up, and you only get the brief glimpse of Brando's flabby ass, but not in any sexual context) In fact, the movie is deeper than that, and the sexual element is only a cipher for deeper meanings, concerning loss and tragedy, the broken-ness and desolation of a person when their world falls apart. A refuge, you might say, when nothing seems to matter any more. It seems a bit shonky and third rate at the beginning, camera-work, directing, the whole shebang, but thoroughly engrossing as it goes along, and not for those sexual reasons. The last half hour or so are positively brilliant, as, after a key scene where Brando visits, and has a stunning monologue at the bedside of the corpse of his dead wife, as she lies in state (Tom Cruise's best performance in Magnolia is a straight lift of this scene) , the tone suddenly lifts, like he's got something off his shoulders, and it becomes quite a charismatic affair, full of life and zest, even optimism... ...For him, at least. And having raised you up in such a way, it abruptly drops you emotionally down a metaphorical elevator shaft right at the end. Seriously, I don't think a creeping grin has dropped so suddenly from my face in any movie. breathtakingly tragic. You can feel the influence of this movie in many modern movies, like Blue Is The Warmest Colour, and one scene is shot where (Now) Elliot Page's dream architect does that thing with the mirrors under the viaduct in Inception (I bet Nolan just wanted to film there because of the aesthetic from this). So if you can get over the reputation and disturbing elements of the movie's production, you have a brilliant move here. 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 20th Oct 2024		Fluke (1995)	Rated 6/10 MGM tries to do Disney, and misses the mark, somewhat. Fans of James Herbert's novels will acknowledge this, while not being his greatest novel, does hold a place of deep affection in their hearts... as it is, not his usual horror fare, but more of a poetically tragic tale of a man who, once he dies after a tragic car accident, is resurrected as a puppy, born to a stray, and form there, haunted by memories of his former life as a man, tries to find his way back to his human family. Already you can see this is a little too heavy for what the DVD cover here suggests. That seems to present the idea of a more: "Turner and Hooch", or "Beethoven" style "Awww!"-fest. And I think that was what MGM was aiming for: That those kinds of movies were killing it at the box office at the time, tuned in superficially to this novel, as "being in the ballpark" of that kind of story, and so went with it. But while it may be among the more earnest, even tragically sentimental of Herbert's work, it really isn't Disney material, and a little strong and odd for kids. I made the mistake of watching with headphones on, so all I could see in my head while the voice overs for the real dog's thought dialogue was the image of Samuel L. Jackson in a booth, with fag on the go and a glass of whiskey while he phoned in this afternoon's work for a fat paycheck / paycheque (as you will)... That really breaks the illusion. (Still better than a modern CGI talking dog effect though... at least it's honest!) It does engage you more in the last twenty minutes or so though, and is, on occasion there, touching... but that's due to James Herbert's story, rather than the mis-matched Disney style movie presentation, which even that, could not entirely dispel. I would therefore encourage people to give the movie a miss perhaps - or go into it with no expectations at least - and instead, read the book... It's pretty lo-key great. 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 20th Oct 2024		One Night At McCool's (2001)	Rated 3/10 This is a deeply weird and and unpleasant movie. It aims for the kind of black humour that War of the Roses had, but it's aim is wildly off. Imagine The Farelly brothers trying to do a Tarantino movie, and creating only a mess. Greatest of respect to John Goodman (Legend), but I do not need the thought of him lusting after Liv Tyler in my head, let alone having sex with her... And that's basically what this movie is: Three guys scraping their knuckles after Liv Tyler, while she plays them to get what she wants, but she is essentially exploited for her sexuality at this time, and fetish-ising her, and dressing her up in various sexual fantasy wardrobe choices for horny teens. Now this would be ok, if the movie was at all funny, but it isn't. It produced only two mild chuckles from me, which isn't enough to forgive the movie's trying too hard, but failing too hard awfulness. The only good things in this movie are Michael Douglas's "hair" (a wonder to behold!), and Reba McEntire... Everything else is a cringe-fest. 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Pridesale 19th Oct 2024		Till Death Us Do Part (1969)	Acquired a annotated script for this from 1968. Oddly it is sub titled The Garnett Saga, which wouldnt be used until the 1972 film. Has names of extras in pay on certain days ( looks like it was the script more or less issued for the last shooting day ) and has basic script plus paperclipped changes. Will sell for a substantial donation to charity
Pridesale 19th Oct 2024		Till Death Us Do Part (1969)	Watched this on YT. its a bit dire for me but covers Alf being young in WW2, into the Wapping Flat and industry and politics of late 60s and into the future in a Flat in Newtown Essex.
Magic Marmalade 17th Oct 2024		The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008)	Rated 6/10 This is one long-ass movie! Finally plucked up the courage to watch this, thinking, since time of release, that it was absurd and hokey in concept... a bit of mock-worthy fluff. I never imagined that what I was actually in for was a positively Tolkienian 2hrs, 45 mins of funerial, languid, bordering on the morbid, depression, and all n David Fincher's signature murky tones, minimalist direction and glacial pacing. ...I mean, it's actually a better story than I had expected, and better handled than the cringe fest I thought awaited me, but with all those previously mentioned factors at play, it just exhausts the viewer, so that by the end, I found myself drooping, and thinking: "Dude, I don't really care how this ends now, so long as it does end... at some point... soon!" Subsequent research reveals something I didn't know about the story: That it was based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald... I repeat: *short* story, of some only 45 pages long. How on earth do you spin out a 45 page short story to heading toward three hours of movie? And this tale of a man who ages in reverse, set against the fable like device of a clock that was built to run backwards by a man in grief at the loss of his son to war certainly does have an appealing notion at it's heart, and which should have made for a more engaging, and crucially, compelling tale. It actually feels like one of those short stories great novelists write from time to time, where they get a cute notion in their heads, and so jot it down... for fun. I think what's happened here then, is whoever made this happen had too long to think about that notion, and all it's extensive implications, and spun the yarn out way too long. Another odd thing, is when a particular director makes a movie not in his accustomed style, or of a different kind of genre, it often begins to look like another director's work slightly. Here: it has a faint whiff of Wes Anderson or the kind of magical fable telling of Guillermo del Toro, but alas, these allusions wilt under the weight of it's Finchery. (Also, in this sense, Martin Scorcese's: Hugo, sprang to mind, except that is quite enjoyable) So if you fillet this movie, and look at the bones of it, it's like Forest Gump minus the joy, emotional impact, fun, engaging quality, or entertainment value... and it should have been handed to a Zemeckis or a del Toro to make a better movie. Drab, soul crushing, depressing... and ultimately disappointing, in that it could have been such a magical movie if someone else had done it... with a shorter runtime! 2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
MR B PAGE 16th Oct 2024		Reunion (1994)	Based on a novel called Points Of Light by Linda Grey Sexton. Leelee Sobieski`s Film Debut.
Magic Marmalade 15th Oct 2024		Timecop (1994)	Rated 7/10 A fairly decent slice of sci-fi action spectacular hocum, typical of it's age, and among the better movies of JCVD's, that holds up better than most among his filmography. 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 15th Oct 2024		SpaceCamp (1986)	Don't know why, but whenever I see the title for this, I always see: "Space-chimp" (And admit, for a moment, I'm actually a little disappointed it isn't! :)
Magic Marmalade 15th Oct 2024		Banlieue 13 (2004)	Rated 8/10 Hardcore Parkour! This is one of those frenetic thrill rides that jumps straight into the action from the off, and rattles along to the end without letting catch your breath much. From the age when Parkour was, culturally speaking: "a thing" on everyone's lips, so naturally you get all these brain bending parkour set pieces and fights, but it also has a great premise, and fairly decent story to boot: So, a local lad defies, and goes up against the local drug lord / warlord in his district, which, along with others, have been deemed "out of control" by the authorities, and so a wall has been built up around it to keep the mayhem in, and away form "decent folks" outside... Said lad fails in his attempt (though has a decent stab at it!), and is locked away by the corrupt police when he is delivered to them by said warlord... and to make matters worse, his sister is being held captive inside by the warlord and his crew. But then... an action man / super cop is recruited to go into district 13 and retrieve and defuse a bomb that the warlord has stolen, and which will go off in a few hours, so naturally employs the help of the incarcerated local lad to guide him in, which also gives him the chance to recover his sister... Naturally, both are supremo Parkour super- bendy people, made of springs and general boing-y-ness, so that helps! This is an absolute masterclass in how to cram a complete action story into just 1 hour, 24 mins without missing beat. A super thrill ride actioner, great for a Saturday night in. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
zabadak 12th Oct 2024		The Crowd (1928)	Public Domain Review article :read:
zabadak 12th Oct 2024		Timestalker (2024)	Review Independent review :read: ✔︎ Helpful Review?
mikewn 10th Oct 2024		Ethel (2012)	RIP Ethel!!

Page 1 of 25 : Previous : Next :