Category: Reviews
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Review: THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES
I’m Not The Same Hobbit I Once Was. For those who have read The Hobbit, there was always a rather obvious joke implied by the cliffhanger ending of the second Hobbit film,The Desolation of Smaug. The dragon Smaug sweeps dreadfully down from his lonely mountain towards the defenceless city of Lake-town, and we smash-cut to…
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Review: The RAMBO Movies
The Gulf of America Until I was well into my thirties, the only Stallone movie I’d ever seen was Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot. I gave the Rocky and the Rambo franchises a clean miss, though growing up in the 1980s, they were part of my upbringing anyway. Rambo and Rocky lived in the iconography all around me, without…
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Review: STAR TREK FIRST CONTACT (Blogging The Next Generation Christmas Special)
“Well I sure as hell am not going up there sober.” The popular “best” of the four Star Trek: The Next Generation feature films, Star Trek: First Contact is actually my least favourite. It’s hard for me to imagine a more stupidly, or crassly, conceived franchise property than this. The film drips concept rather than storytelling,…
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Review: THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG
The Stubbornness of Dwarves Watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, I had a full moment of clarity about why the people who don’t get these movies just don’t get these movies. An elf was talking to a dwarf in a dungeon under a palace carved out of a tree. It all seemed perfectly sensible…
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Review: STAR TREK INSURRECTION (Blogging the Next Generation – Movie Release Week Special)
“All field units. Intercept the android.” There’s a new Star Trek movie in theatres, and I’ve got pretty serious problems with it; which makes this a perfect time to continue my backwards troll through the endlessly problematic Star Trek: The Next Generation feature films, bringing me to Star Trek: Insurrection, a.k.a. Star Trek 9, and…
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Review: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Bandersnatch in a Bandit Hat So here we are. Star Trek has completed its metamorphosis from a science fiction framework built on new and innovative storytelling into a “greatest hits” reboot where the entirety of its narrative tension is derived from the current article’s relationship with the audience’s knowledge of the original version – specifically,…
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Review: STAR TREK NEMESIS (Blogging The Next Generation Christmas Special)
“Don’t be so vain.” I struggled with how, or even if, to include the Star Trek: The Next Generation feature films in Blogging the Next Generation. They are such weaksauce antecedents to the series. Of the four films, only Generations – yes, Generations – bears any real stylistic, thematic, or conceptual relationship to the television show…
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Review: THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
All good stories deserve embellishment “I think I’m quite ready for another adventure,” 130-year-old Bilbo Baggins proclaimed at the very end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, before stepping onto an Elven ship bound for the afterlife. It was his last onscreen line. A decade later, here’s another adventure at…
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From A To Bond (Appendix B): The Other Casino Royale
Which one is this? The spoof. Who’s who in this one? Niven (Bond); Huston (M); Bayldon (Q); Bouchet (Moneypenny). Where did you first encounter this one? Never seen it before. Who’s the bad guy, and what does he want? Orson! Fucking! Welles!! as the villainous Le Chiffre! AND! Woody Allen as the über-bad, Dr. Noah!…
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From A To Bond (Appendix A): Never Say Never Again
Which one is this? The renegade. Who’s who in this one? Connery (Bond); Fox (M); McCowen (Q); Salem (Moneypenny); Casey (Leiter). Where did you first encounter this one? On TV when I was growing up, probably aged 10 or 11. Who’s the bad guy, and what does he want? Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximilian Largo,…