Sunday 12 July 2020

this week on 100 Films

A whopping 11 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


The Equalizer 2 (2018)
It isn’t a terrible film, but it is quite a boring one. Not just slow paced — genuinely boring. A raft of subplots don’t really go anywhere or serve any purpose, the main story is incredibly thin, and the limited action sequences do little to balance the books.
Read more here.


Greyhound (2020)
The threat of the U-boats is ever present, a constant danger that leaves our men pinging from one crisis to the next... Combined with the brief running time, it feels like the film doesn’t let up. This isn’t some stately drama about men at sea who are occasionally forced to take potshots at an unseen enemy, but an action movie; only instead of men clashing with kung fu or guns, its boats and subs fighting with torpedos and, um, trigonometry. The result is tight, tense, and thrilling.
Read more here.


It Chapter Two (2019)
I think I liked the film it wanted to be (using the horror genre as an analogy/examination of growing up and moving on, or not, and how the past differs from our memories even as it defines us) more than the film it actually is (kind of that, but not in enough depth, and with a bunch of unnecessary business thrown in).
Read more here.


The Old Guard (2020)
the concept has fundamental similarities to another recent big-budget Netflix actioner, Michael Bay’s 6 Underground. Whereas that was about a band of off-the-grid mercenaries working in secret to try to influence the course of human history for the better by going around shooting bad guys, The Old Guard is about a band of people who can’t die working in secret to try to influence the course of human history for the better by going around shooting bad guys. ... The Old Guard is more blandly acceptable than 6 Underground. And yet it never swings as big as Bay’s films — for all his many faults, his “go big or go home” style has its merits as blockbuster entertainment. Nothing here is going to stick in the memory as much as 6 Underground’s opening car chase
Read more here.


The 100-Week Roundup VII
Featuring...
- The Garden of Words
- The Secret in Their Eyes
- Paul
- The Way of the Gun
Read more here.


The 100-Week Roundup VIII
Featuring...
- Beneath the Planet of the Apes
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
- The Quiet Earth
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

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