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Star Wars, Indiana Jones… are there any more great films produced by George Lucas in the last 30 years that he can now cynically revive with so-called sequels designed solely to cash in the nostalgia of Generation X-ers? Phew, looks like he’s done the lot, unless of course he wants to release a CGI-augmented version of American Gigolo… Read the rest of this entry »
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has to hold the record as my most avoided book ever. A friend lent it to me twelve years ago and it’s been sitting on my shelf ever since. He probably wonders where the hell it went. The problem is, I know my friend’s penchant for esoteric works of much vaunted philosophical richness, and at heart I’m a lazy bastard who doesn’t like to think much. Well, it’s not that I don’t like to think, but I hate being bored, and boring was what this book looked to be. But let me tell you, this amazing piece of work is anything but boring.
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David Cronenberg poses some interesting questions on the nature of evil in his latest thriller. Eastern Promises is a brooding, atmospheric snapshot of a murky London underworld. Apart from focusing on a crime subculture hitherto untreated by films, it presents a mesmerising study of what happens when the world we know brushes up against what lies beneath. Read the rest of this entry »
This film has everything going for it except for one small detail: it just didn’t make me laugh that much. I mean, I enjoyed it, I appreciate what they were trying to do, and it really was very well executed – it just wasn’t all that funny! Read the rest of this entry »
A beautifully shot film in a gorgeous location, this could have been a really great film but for a bit of a sloppy plot and a pretty sub-standard supporting cast. Nolte is very good as the rough-diamond heroin-junkie ex(?)-thief, and his character is nicely developed, but the heist plot is rather unconvincing.
I often wonder how Tim Powers concocts the base premise for each of his books. Does it strike him in a blinding flash of insight, or does he slowly tease it together from a sustained mental effort of conceptualisation? Because it seems to me that, for him, devising the central concept to underpin the story almost gets him halfway there. Of course, it would only be the tip of the iceberg as far as the hard work of writing a book goes. But the story premise contains the underpinning appeal of all Powers’ work, and I think it is where his true genius resides.
“I’m B, and I’m proud”. That seems to be the attitude of this schlocker from director David R Ellis. This is a B-movie that revels in its own crappiness. Indeed, the concept is so hilariously ridiculous, it generated a pre-release internet hype not seen since The Blair Witch Project back in 1999. Read the rest of this entry »
