Blooded Review

An interesting mockumentary (though there is little mocking to be found) about the issues of extremism and the morality of hunting, this so called ‘horror/thriller’, is actually neither of these, leaving a film with a interesting style, but one that ultimately holds it back as entertainment.

Blooded is definitely an interesting film. Effectively a mockumentary, though shot in a documentary style void of any real ‘mockery’ in a way so realistic and so rigidly held to the conventions of a documentary that after a while it is for all intensive purposes, a documentary, though the events that it documents are far from real.

Sucker Punch Review

It has some great ideas and some equally great actions sequences, but ultimately Sucker Punch is held back by a poorly implemented plot and equally poor acting. That said, if you like hot ladies, you'll probably enjoy this.

Sucker Punch is a strange film, mainly because I can’t really gauge what kind of film it is. Everything about the marketing for it portrayed a straight action film, but in the end it is much more than that, and not always in a good way.

£3 Film: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Bit of an older one this week, and probably most everyone will have seen this but thought I’d write a little something about it anyway.

Guy Ritchie is one of those directors when you kind of know what you are going to get, though his Sherlock Holmes taking him in a slightly new and more exciting direction. Snatch, RocknRolla, Revolver; all the high-octane, gangster filled, gun ridden, cursing and maiming that anyone could ask for. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is where this all began, being Guy Ritchie’s first full length feature, and it is here that we see the origins for the majority of his later films, both good and bad. It also introduced to the world two titans of the film industry, Jason Statham and former footballer Vinnie Jones! These great casting decisions aside, Lock Stock is actually a great film, and well worth watching (if you haven’t already seen it).

Fifty years On: Yojimbo

So another new feature idea that I had, why don’t I review films that are fifty years old this year (so films from 1961) to see if they are still good in the 2011! This works out quite nicely because I quite recently watched a film from 1961, Yojimbo, and here are my thoughts on it!

Akira Kurosawa is probably one of the most influential directors in film history, or so it could be argued. It is within the 1950’s that we see most of his most influential works; Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and Hidden Fortress had heavy influences upon western cinema. Either directly, such as The Magnificent Seven, which took its story straight from Seven Samurai, or more subtly, such as the inspirations for Star Wars: A new Hope found within Hidden Fortress. By the beginning of the 1960’s then, Akira had already had all these films under his belt, along with many others, and was already an acclaimed director. However, after the box office failure of his first independent production team production, The Bad Sleep released in 1960, Akira returned from the modern setting to something much more traditional, and hence Yojimbo was born.

Never Let Me Go Review

Breathtakingly beautiful yet pervasively sinister, Never Let Me Go is pure science Fiction entwined beautifully with a tale of love, loss and morality; it should not be missed.

I wasn’t expecting much from this, I have to say. From the trailers there seemed little here but a love triangle with a mere hint of science fiction backdrop. Well it certainly is that, but it is also much, much more. Based upon Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel of the same name, Never Let Me Go is set in a alternative almost utopian future in which disease has been almost eradicated and human life has been extended well beyond a hundred years. To this backdrop, the plot follows the plight of three young people, Kathy ‘H’, played by Carey Mulligan (and by an eerily similar Isobel Meikle-Small as the young Kathy), Ruth, played by Keira Knightley (and by Ella Purnell as the younger version) and finally Tommy, played by Andrew Garfield (and Charlie Rowe), through three distinct periods of their lives.

£3 Film: Colin

I’ve always wondered why some films are so cheap, are they absolute bargains, or low in price for a definite reason? Well now I’m going to be finding out. Each Week I will be finding and writing reviews for films around the £3 price mark (although they could be cheaper than this) to see if they are any good. I will generally be attempting to pick films which are lesser known, (reviewing a cheap film that everyone has probably already seen doesn’t seem interesting) and hopefully I will find some gems, among what I expect will be mostly rough. Well without further ado…Colin!

An interesting premise and an applaudably low budget does not save this zombie film’s bland story and uninteresting characters.

From the DVD Shelf: Timecrimes (or Los cronocrímenes)

A breath of fresh air for the Time-travel genre, this low budget Sci-fi thriller is certainly mind-bending, but in an extremely good way.

At first glance this film seems to have everything going against it. First of all it has a silly name, a poor translation of its original Spanish title, Los cronocrímenes? (I don’t know, I don’t speak Spanish!). Secondly it’s directed by someone you most likely haven’t ever heard of, Nacho Vigalondo, who sounds more like a bad Mexican super-hero than a great director (no offence Nacho!). While finally, at first glance it looks like a poor, low-budget, slasher-flick, with a main antagonist that resembles a trench coat wearing, scissor wielding, Mummy (If you see the DVD cover you’ll know what I’m talking about). Hence, though I had even been recommended this film by other websites and purchased it, it sat sadly on my shelf for months before I finally got round to watching it. Plainly though, this film is demonstrates clearly why you should never judge a book (or in this case DVD) by its cover, for what we have here is something both imaginative, exciting and extremely thought provoking.