Sunday 10 April 2011

Films

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
[#43 in 100 Films in a Year 2011]
Directed by Sidney Lumet, who sadly died yesterday.

this week on 100 Films

4 new reviews were posted to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...

Cloak and Dagger (1946)
A World War II espionage thriller about the OSS — spies, basically, and the forerunner to the CIA. Despite all the thrills this should elicit, especially when directed by Fritz Lang, I wasn’t particularly impressed... a bit pedestrian and lacklustre; certainly not up to the other Langs I’ve seen from his time in Hollywood.

The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009)
One solution to the sequel problem is to “make it personal”, and that’s exactly what we get. A journalist and his girlfriend working for Mikael are murdered and Lisbeth is suspected of the crime. It’s somewhere around here that the coincidences begin to pile up. It makes perfect sense as a plot in itself, but in bringing Mikael and Lisbeth back together it doesn’t work

Monkey Business (1952)
we see a happily married couple wind up happily married having been through no real strain... the story consists of “Cary Grant behaves like a college boy” followed by “Ginger Rogers behaves like a stroppy newlywed” followed by “Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers behave like 6-year-olds”.

Monsters (2010)
Expecting an epic SF-action movie where soldiers kitted out with futuristic weaponry battle an alien menace? You might be disappointed... this is a science-fiction film that transcends the sci-fi genre. It’s got more in common with Lost in Translation or Before Sunrise than it does with Independence Day or Battle: Los Angeles.

Plus, later tonight look for my review of the final part of the Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.

More next Sunday.