The Italian Job (2003)
I’ve never seen the original, but from what I gather the only similarity is they both feature Minis in their climactic sequence — and even then, the original used ‘real’ Minis while this uses those daft big-as-a-regular-car new ones. In that respect it’s one of those remakes/reboots that is just using the name for brand recognition, and they normally turn out to be awful. But maybe The Italian Job is the exception...Read more here.
Man on a Ledge (2012)
A man books into a swish hotel, has a nice meal, then climbs out the window. Onlookers and police gather. Will he jump? Or is he just a distraction? What follows is pretty generic ‘single location thriller’ material, with a thoroughly daft ending… but when the whole film strains plausibility, do we buy it?Read more here.
My Week with Marilyn (2011)
The supporting cast is a veritable who’s who of recognisable British faces, stars of screens both big and small. Barely a speaking part goes by without an actor you’re certain to recognise. I’d list them but, honestly, there are far, far too many. [But,] of course Dominic Cooper’s in it — is it even legal to make a mid-budget British movie without him now?Read more here.
On Dangerous Ground (1952)
I also didn’t ‘feel’ the juxtaposition of shadowy city in the film’s early sections with bright snowy country later on. Nonetheless, there is a clear contrast on screen, particularly as the city is all shot at night and is very black, while most of the country scenes occur in daylight, emphasising the near-ceaseless white of the snow.Read more here.
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan (2012)
The master of miniatures back when special effects were truly special, rather than copious CGI ladled all over a couple of thousand shots throughout a blockbuster, the effect of Harryhausen’s work in (primarily) the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s is to thank for much of the best creativity in sci-fi/fantasy filmmaking of the last 20 to 30 years.Read more here.
And there were four reviews new to the new blog, too...
Die Hard 2 (1990)
Arguably the other main reason Die Hard worked so well — the confined office block setting — is also discarded, giving McClane a whole airport to run around. We have to be grateful that this isn’t just a straight forward rehash of the first film... but it doesn’t have the same brilliant simplicity.Read more here.
An Education (2009)
Jenny’s induction into her new friends’ higher-class world isn’t marred by the usual abundance of “embarrassing faux pas” humour that such tales normally fall back on. I’ve never understood where the entertainment value is supposed to lie in seeing the character we’re asked to like being put through the kind of social embarrassment that happens all too often in real life and that we’d really rather like to forget.Read more here.
Is Anybody There? (2008)
Perhaps if you’ve ever been that child who wondered and worried about what comes after death, or struggled to find your place in the world, or become stuck in a situation where you feel you may as just give up, or known people who’ve been abandoned as they grew old, or who have suffered that horrible, sometimes slow, sometimes all too fast, loss of their mental faculties, then this film will engage you too.Read more here.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
it may lack the depth of X-Men or X2, both of which played with subtexts of social exclusion and derision... but, taken as a straightforward action-adventure movie about people with extraordinary abilities fighting each other, it more than satisfies.Read more here.
More next Sunday.
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