FILM TALK
2000-2024 |
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Twisters
Director: Lee Isaac Chung 7.19.24
Stars: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell,
Sam Hawksmoor review
Thrills and Chills - definitely wear a helmet in Oklahoma
Promethean Mystique De La Femme
James Campion 3.23.24
In Praise of Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things is a masterpiece of filmmaking ...
Drive Away Dolls
Starring Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein
Road Movie on Diversion 3.20.24
*
Lee ***
Harrowing bio-pic with standout performance from Kate Winslet
Wes Andersens 'Asteroid City' **
Mission Impossible 7 (Part 1) *****
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ***
Oppenheimer *****
Dumb Money ****
The whole Gamestop stock adventure vs the evil Hedge Funds brought poignantly to life. Starring Paul Dano, Seth Rogen,
and more.
The Creator ***
Big budget Ai sci-fi movie
with a plot borrowed from so many other movies. Worth seeing but you keep rooting for Ai to win.
Review of 'Wrong Side of the Tracks'
(Netflix drama)
'Leroy B. Vaughn 1.5.23
Gritty Spanish Crime Drama (2 seasons)
Running Up That Hill
Sam Hawksmoor
The power of the soundtrack on Stranger Things
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Sam Hawksmoor review 5.20.22
Written & Directed by Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
Starring Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis *11 Oscar nominations
‘Now, you may only see a pile of receipts, but I see a story. I can see where this story is going. And it does not look good. It. Does. Not. Look. Good.’
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Xochitl Gomez, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel McAdams
A silly adventure fantasy that doesn't break new ground
Don’t Look Up (2021)
Dir: Adam McKay
Story David Sirota
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill
Satire in dire need of an edit
The Politics, Culture & Spirit of Soul
James Campion 7.16.21
In Praise of Summer Soul
Musician and filmmaker, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson may well have made the seminal concert film of the age – the rock/soul/funk/gospel/blues American age.
THE GHOSTS OF HATE & FREEDOM
In Praise of Jojo Rabbit – The Best Film I Have Seen in a Decade
James Campion
We have to dance to show God we are grateful for being alive
The Docks of New York (1928)
Dean Borok
The critical and commercial success of “The Artist” proves that the art of black and white silent cinema still holds value as a kind of celluloid (to coin an antiquated, but still charming expression) Kabuki Theater, where broad acting, exaggerated reactions and mime techniques convey the progress of the story line in place of spoken dialogue.
The Summer of 'Annie Hall' at 40.
James Campion
Alvy and Annie’s relationship reveals the deeper truths in the insecurity of the dating world circa mid-70s (Alvy insists that he and Annie kiss in the middle of their first date to avoid nausea later)
Free Fire
Director Ben Wheatley
Helen Reynolds review
Free Fire tries to be a lot of things – from a 70s western, to a mafia stitch up – but namely it tries to be fun.
Get Out
Director: Jordan Peele
with Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford,
Helen Reyolds review
Get Out is a horror suitably set in suburban America and rather than demons, ghosts and creepy kids, this film makes nightmares from deep-rooted racism.
The Great Wall
starring Matt Damon & Tian Jing
Director Zhang Yimou
Helen Reynolds review
For a movie that has a monster acting as a metaphor for greed, it’s surprising just how engaging it is to watchSLOW WEST review
Director: John Maclean
Stars: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn
Charlotte March review
Somehow found myself charmed by Michael Fassbender in a stetson the other day in Slow West: easily the best film I’ve seen all year ...
Silmido (South Korea 2002)
Director: Woo-Suk Kang
Dean Borok
Like repels like. Positive charges reject each other. No finer example of this rule exists than the Korean peninsula, which has been engaged in a vicious civil war for over six decades.
Dr Strange
Directed by Scott Derrickson, starring Benedict Cumberbatch
Dr Strange - spectacular and stylish
Catching Fire:
Hunger Games - Part Two
Sam North review
The second one is always a hard task. Do you remind everyone about what happened in the first or just get into it? If you didn’t see part one – well why the hell not?
The Hunger Games:
Mockingjay - Part One
starring Jennifer Lawrence
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Sam North review
Dark, oppressive, moody – Mockingjay Part One reflects our times in more ways than one.
Elysium
Director & Writer: Neill Blomkamp
Sam Hawksmoor review
Being a big fan of District 9 I approached Elysium with enthusiasm and certainly the look and feel of the movie is ambitious. LA in 2154 is every bit as depressing as one would suspect it will be
Oblivion
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Sam Hawksmoor
a thinking persons sci-fi movie, stylish, beautiful to look at channeling Tarkovskiy
The Blackboard Jungle
Dan Schneider review
Any film that stars Sidney Poitier is going to rise and fall on the basis of his presence. He is one of those classic actors, like a Jimmy Cagney, Spencer Tracy, or John Wayne, that simply captures the attention of an audience, for good or ill.
56 Up
Dan Schneider
Watching Michael Apted’s latest installment in the great The Up Series- whose films he’s all directed, save the first, helmed by Paul Almond, 56 Up, sees a film that is an exercise in expectation and disappointment
Osaka Elegy - Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Dan Schneider
Osaka Elegy (Naniwa Erejii) is an early black and white film from the canon of Kenji Mizoguchi, one of the Big Three Film Masters from Japan, along with Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa.
Almanac Of Fall
Dan Schneider
Having already seen Bela Tarr’s later film canon, it was an interesting excursion back in time, to see his 1984 color (yes, a color film from Tarr!) film, Almanac Of Fall (Öszi Almanach).
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Dan Schneider
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? is one of those films that almost everybody has a wrong opinion of, from critic to fan to hater. First, it’s simply not a Grand Guignol film. Why? It simply does not play out on a large enough scale.
November 6, 2012: The Night of Living Dead Racists
Gunter Chang
The last 4 years have seen the biggest deterioration in political and social civility since Homo sapiens started dating Neanderthal women.
Why So Much Violence?
James Morford on Guns and Strangers in Film
That the United States teems with violence is no surprise. Although biologists and psychologists assure there is no universal aggressive instinct, television, newspapers and magazines, daily report children assassinated, adults slaughtered, and geriatrics mutilated
The Docks of New York (1928)
Dean Borok
The critical and commercial success of “The Artist” proves that the art of black and white silent cinema still holds value as a kind of celluloid (to coin an antiquated, but still charming expression) Kabuki Theater
Moonrise Kingdom
Directed by Wes Anderson
with Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman
Sam Hawksmoor review
In what must be Wes Anderson’s most complete and coherent movie yet, Moonrise Kingdom arrives and is like a perfect summer picnic
Maximillian Day: The Continuing Adventures of an inveterate film-maker - James Evans
Films start, they go into production and you do your best with them, but for various reasons they don’t always get finished
The Expendables
Dir: Sylvester Stallone
Dean Borok review
Nobody is more sensible than I to the allure of seeing somebody lose his dental work in a flood of sputum as the result of a perfectly aimed flying hook kick.
Glo-America on Parade
James Campion 25.02.2011
The Oscars is the only award show worth watching, an annual fury of unchecked wagering (some larger than others) on the outcomes of Best Costume, Most Likely to Gaffer or some such.
Movies without frontiers in Asia
Jules Kay
Thailand attracted plenty of Hollywood stars in 2010 with some of next year's top movies being filmed in the Kingdom
Inception
Written & Directed by Christopher Nolan
Music Hans Zimmer
Starring Leonardo de Caprio, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ellen Page, Cillan Murphy, Marion Cotillard. Tom Hardy
Finally an adult film that engages all the emotions and is visually stunning. Surely the best movie of 2010 by far.
Filming Action and Martial Arts in 3D
Creates Both Challenges and Opportunities
Antonio Graceffo
“In some ways, 3D is like real life. It’s the way we see the world normally.”3D Guy, Al Caudullo.
Couch Potato Film Festival
Dean Borok
I didn’t really see the point of attending the Cannes Film Festival this year. Since my pal Madoff lost his French yacht and got locked up for eternity-plus-150 years, I wouldn't have anybody to hang out with anyway.
Avatar- A critique
Saleem Ayoub Quna
A Navi native's point of view
Not a Vintage Year
Movie Round-up 2009
District 9 to Where the Wild Things Are
Waltz With Bashir (Vals Im Bashir) (2008)
Directed and written by Ari Folman.
Paul Rumble
A pack of twenty six snarling dogs rampage through a middle
eastern city, slavering and snarling, sending pedestrians and tables
scattering.
Videodrama
Jack Clarkson
Videogames and Hollywood have never really got along all that
well. The games industry keeps making awful games that cash in on
blockbuster movies. What I want to ask is why?
Donnie Darko
Written and Directed by Richard Kelly- Michael Webb
"Twenty-eight days, six hours, forty two minutes, twelve
seconds
that is when the world will end."
This Means War: Sex and the
City & the Assault on Modern Man - Kennedy Heather
Being that I inhabit the western hemisphere and am either (a)
a female or (b) a gay man, one of my central leisure pursuits is,
of course watching Sex and the City. The show is definite
in its demographic; this is part of its appeal. You wouldnt
invite your dentist bra shopping and by the same token you dont
expect your straight male pals to cosy up for a full-on SATC sesh.
Such are the unspoken codes of civil society.
Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki
David Gordon on anime
Real Horror in
Anime
Kayt Solomon on Hadashi No Gen
Being There
Directed by Hal Ashby
Dan Schneider review
Hal Ashby made a series of quirky films in the 1970s that were highly regarded, then succumbed to a drug addiction and died before the 1980s were through. The most famous of these were Harold And Maude, Shampoo, Coming Home, and Being There.
A World Apart
Gabriela Davies on two film
'Things we lost in the fire' comes as a clean break from the
happy endings we are used to. The narrative is strong, yet simple
Eastwood
is Eastwood
Gabriela Davies
Some films are just a collection of clichés. These films
can disappoint, they can comfort, they can bore, or they can turn
everything on its head and surprise us
Vinicius - Dir Miquel
Faria Jnr
Celebrating the Bossa Nova
Gabriela Davies
Floating Weeds Directed by Yasujiro Ozu's
Dan Schneider
Yasujiro Ozu was perhaps the greatest obsessional filmmaker
in history
Vincent & Theo
Dan Schneider
Vincent & Theo, may be the worst film ever made by a major
director who has made a great film.
In The Mood For Love
Dan Schneider
Watching Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love, was an interesting experience: the 99 minute long film is clearly a superior work of art and cinema
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Civil War – directed by Alex Garland
Sam North review 4.27.24
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson
Babylon
Directed by Damien Chazelle
Sam North review 1.21.23
Starring Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Tobey Maguire, Jovan Adepo
It’s a mess, but kind of like a road crash you stay to rubberneck as things unfold before you
In Praise of Coda
James Campion April 2022
Heder’s story is original and steeped in symbolism presented in a less opaque style prized by outside-the-mainstream films that openly trade in that artistic currency.
Hindi Film Legend Dilip Kumar - 1922 - 2021
Harsh Thakor
In the history of Hindi film industry no actor ever took intensity to such mythical proportions or regions as Dilip Kumar.
Our Monster Fixation
James Campion
What Godzilla vs. Kong Tells Us About Our Times
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Written & Directed by
Quentin Tarantino
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Dakota Fanning
Nostalgic and affectionate focus on the lives of actors in 1969
The Graduate at 50
James Campion
Celebrating My Favorite Film with Author Beverly Gray
The Graduate, which is now a half century old. It is, I believe, as flawless a work of art as I have absorbed for now 35 of those years.
The Camera Never Lies
(Except on Location)
Robert Yareham
Nobody really believes that the world portrayed in the cinema is the real world, even when the film in question claims to be based on ‘real events’ or a ‘true story’.
The Development of Cross Gender Spectatorship Theory: A Survey of Contemporary Theory and its Application - Etan Jonathan Ilfeld
The Brother From Another Planet
Director John Sayles (1984)
Alex Sheremet review
Pulp (1972) DVD review
Dan Schneider review
Actors: Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Lionel Stander, Lizabeth Scott, Nadia Cassini
Director: Mike Hodges
Three Resurrected Drunkards
Dan Schneider DVD review
a sometimes fun and amusing comedy-absurdist drama...
The Days Of Wine And Roses
Dan Schneider review
October 2nd, 1958 Playhouse 90 episode called The Days Of Wine And Roses, scripted by J.P. Miller, and directed by John Frankenheimer.
Twenty-Four Eyes - a Keisuke Kinoshita film
a Dan Schneider review
Twenty-Four Eyes ... is one of the worst filmic disappointments I can recall.
Italian Fascism In Color
Dan Schneider
Fortunately, what saves the film from being a disaster is Benito Mussolini and his thugs
The Roaring Twenties
Dan Schneider
Watching Raoul Walsh’s black and white gangster film, The Roaring Twenties, from 1939, is watching the tail end of an era of genre films that had run its course, and was pretty hollowed out.
I Vitelloni
Dan Schneider
Sometimes, after achieving a certain level, an artist makes a slight regression before hitting the heights of greatness. Such an arc is apparent to me after having watched Federico Fellini’s 1953, black and white Neo-Realist film,I Vitelloni
Ten Tiny Love Stories
Dan Schneider review
a film that should be seen, and in its best scenarios, embraced
Hands Over The City
Dean Borok
Francesco Rosi’s scathing depiction of municipal corruption in 1960’s Naples
Sunset Boulevard
Dan Schneider DVD review
Sunset Boulevard is a grand entertainment, if a bit light on enlightenment.
Teorema
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Dan Schneider
How best to describe one of the worst films I’ve ever watched?
The Quiet Duel
Director:Akira Kurosawa
Dan Schneider
Great artists have a way to make even their lesser works interesting, if not great. Such is the case with the 1949 black and white film, The Quiet Duel
Movie Town for Thailand
Jules Kay
Thailand has long been known as a popular choice for filmmakers. With a US$650-million Movie Town project scheduled to open in Chiang Mai 2012, Thailand may soon become Hollywood's favourite supporting actor.
Watchmen
Directed by Zack Snyder.
Jack Clarkson
If
youve read the book, go watch the movie, you owe it to yourself,
and frankly, they deserve the price of admission
Fanning the Flames: how the queer space of the internet and the writing
of fan fiction enhances the fictional universe of Torchwood
Jodie Corney
Crumb - Directed by
Terry Zwigoff
Dan Schnieder review
upon rewatching the film, the first thing that stands out about
it is how poorly it has held up as a filmic portrait of an
artist.
Control (2007)
Directed by Anton Corbijn
Russ Thomas
Starring Samantha Morton and Sam Riley Control is the tragic story
of Ian Curtis, ex-frontman for Joy Division
Superbad Greg Mottola (Director),
Russell Thomas
Superbad is testament to the fact that teen movies based in and
around American high schools will never be exhausted.
Borat: Dir. Larry Charles
Emma King
If there was ever a comedy that made such a phenomenal impact on
its audience, it must be Borat
Day
for Night
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Dan Schnieder
Critics argue the film shows how much François
Truffaut loves film. So? Love without action or meaning is rather
sterile- the perfect description for this well made but dull and
simply pointless film.
Kung
Fu Panda and The Brooklyn Monk
Antonio Graceffo
When you train, you battle yourself. You wrestle your internal demons
forcing your mind and body to bend. We all know the story of the
sculpture who was asked how he carved such a perfect warrior from
stone. He answered, "The warrior as already there, I just removed
the excess stone."
The Legend of the Philadelphia
Story
The
Saving of a Screen Icons Career
Rick Neal
Who
is the greatest Hollywood star of all time? Ask six different people
and youll get six different answers.
Chick
Lit & Chick Flicks
Callum Graham
Its
sexist, elitist, self indulgent and often badly written. And you
know what? Its exactly the same as mens
Wristcutters: A Love
Story
Director: Goran Dukic
Calvin Hussey review
To judge a book, or DVD as it were, by its cover the title "Wristcutters"
doesnt exactly conjure up the most positive of images.
Wendy
and Lucy
Tiffany Lee
When
a film captures the deep insecurities of modern society with little
but a girl and her dog, it makes you wonder, should the Hollywood
majors be looking to independent films for guidance in getting it
right?
9 - Directed by Shane Acker
Sam North review
This is simply the most amazing, wonderful, visually
stunning and thrilling movie of the year... sadly you will probably have missed it.
Let
the Right One In
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Aby Davis review
Something
spooky has come over me, in recent months I have found myself cautiously
peering into the genre of horror and being pleasantly thrilled with
the results.
The Film Club by David Gilmour
Gabriela M Davies review
A father and Son build their relationship around film
Sobre Las Olas and Latin Film
Dean Borok review
Of all the world’s language groups, the most fascinating and sophisticated film output derives from the Spanish-speaking countries of Europe and Latin America, with their diverse and unique historical experiences and cultural points of view
From Page to Screen: a few vexed issues to ponder upon while chewing your popcorn - Chris Mills
I have wanted to have a go at writing something about film and television adaptations of books for a while, but the subject is quite large and unwieldy to get to grips with easily and to do justice.
The
Beast Of Yucca Flats
Directed by Coleman Francis.
With Tor Johnson, Barbara Francis, Bing Stafford. - Dan Schneider
how I missed this is beyond me; especially given that its lead
star is the truly legendary Tor Johnson, of Plan 9 From Outer
Space infamy.
Variety
Lights
Dan Schneider
If
you have ever wondered why Federico Fellini's film was called Eight
and a Half , the reason is simple. It was the eighth full film he
had directed, till that point, along with a 1/2 film credit, which
was his debut effort,
Fresa
y Chocolate
Directors: Alea & Tabio
Anne Marie-Dover
A bigoted and fervently heterosexual young man and an older, decadent
homosexual is very promising, the plot reveals a sensitivity that
has made Fresas y Chocolate one of the most celebrated Latin
American films of the 90s.
Pat Garrett and Billy the
Kid
Directed by Sam Peckinpah,
written by Rudy Wurlitzer,
starring James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan
Joesef Fiser
Pat Garrett is a 35 year old film about an event hundreds year ago
which never actually happened, taking place in setting which, at
best, only resembles the reality.
The Jimmy Show
Directed by Frank Whaley
Dan Schnieder DVD review and analysis of this Blue Collar drama
Dynarama:RIP Ray Harryhausen
John M. Edwards
Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest movie ever made!
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