Monday 23 July 2012
LINK: The Dark Knight Rises (2012): The Comic Adaptation Falls
Link to post can be found here: Dark Knight Rises Review
Saturday 21 July 2012
The Moral Responsbility of Film [LINK]
The new post can be found here: http://thepopcornlounge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-moral-responsibility-of-film.html
Tuesday 17 July 2012
Re-post: Breaking Bad (2012): The End Justifies The Extreme
A re-post via: http://thepopcornlounge.blogspot.co.uk/
I usually make some effort to come up with a witty pun when writing a tittle for a post but for this I simply use the shows tagline, mainly because I do not think I need make attempt to get your attention, and also I cant be bothered.
I guess this has been a long time coming, a review of a TV show that is, and what a better choice. Breaking Bad has of course started up for a new season and in some ways it really has been desperately needed. The season 5 premiere in a nutshell: better than anything that has graced a cinema screen this year, all 42 minutes of it! When I started this blog at the end of last year I speculated and salivated over some of the films we had to look forward to in 2012, I can now say, with more than half the year already gone, I was wrong. 2012 has so far been nothing but a disappointment in terms of film, despite so much excitement my favorite film of this year has been Chronicle, and I didn't even know what that was until I watched it. TV on the other hand has been having one of its finest years ever! The quality and diversity of television has been ever increasing as budgets get bigger, production values improve infinitely and what better proof than Game of Thrones, and more and more talented individuals including well known film makers flock to HBO and AMC to release their creative juices, I need not list the countless number of writers, directors and actors that are continually involving themselves in televised projects.
TV has become Hollywood's exclusive brothel, where anything goes, and terms like family orientated lie dead and infected with chlamydia. The intelligent and hilariously crude humor of shows like Girls can share the airwaves with Tween Wolf (a possible typo my have occurred but I stand by my words). Spartacus can sever heads and Aaron Sorkin can write episode after episode of inspirational speech. And Breaking Bad exists! I consider the season 2 finale of the West Wing to be the greatest hour of drama ever written, the Sopranos end finale has a better ending than sex itself, and Breaking Bad deserves to be the first TV show ever awarded an Oscar because it is better than all other forms of entertainment that currently exist. The writing, direction, acting, cinematography and even editing are at a standard that most films will never achieve because they are too concerned with appealing to a family audience or converting to 9.54-D, all in order to make money. Cinema is what is wrong with film at the moment. But that is for another time.
Breaking Bad is the epitome of a good television and other than maybe the Dark Knight Rises there really isn't anything else id rather watch so then surely the end really does justify the means? It is uncompromising, brutal and relentless and that is what makes Breaking Bad so damn good, it does not care what stands in its way, much like Mr White himself, it takes us to the extremes, the extreme of what good viewing is and should be, however they should choose to end the show I can confidently say that the creators will not alter from these truly admirable principles, and that I standby.
I usually make some effort to come up with a witty pun when writing a tittle for a post but for this I simply use the shows tagline, mainly because I do not think I need make attempt to get your attention, and also I cant be bothered.
I guess this has been a long time coming, a review of a TV show that is, and what a better choice. Breaking Bad has of course started up for a new season and in some ways it really has been desperately needed. The season 5 premiere in a nutshell: better than anything that has graced a cinema screen this year, all 42 minutes of it! When I started this blog at the end of last year I speculated and salivated over some of the films we had to look forward to in 2012, I can now say, with more than half the year already gone, I was wrong. 2012 has so far been nothing but a disappointment in terms of film, despite so much excitement my favorite film of this year has been Chronicle, and I didn't even know what that was until I watched it. TV on the other hand has been having one of its finest years ever! The quality and diversity of television has been ever increasing as budgets get bigger, production values improve infinitely and what better proof than Game of Thrones, and more and more talented individuals including well known film makers flock to HBO and AMC to release their creative juices, I need not list the countless number of writers, directors and actors that are continually involving themselves in televised projects.
TV has become Hollywood's exclusive brothel, where anything goes, and terms like family orientated lie dead and infected with chlamydia. The intelligent and hilariously crude humor of shows like Girls can share the airwaves with Tween Wolf (a possible typo my have occurred but I stand by my words). Spartacus can sever heads and Aaron Sorkin can write episode after episode of inspirational speech. And Breaking Bad exists! I consider the season 2 finale of the West Wing to be the greatest hour of drama ever written, the Sopranos end finale has a better ending than sex itself, and Breaking Bad deserves to be the first TV show ever awarded an Oscar because it is better than all other forms of entertainment that currently exist. The writing, direction, acting, cinematography and even editing are at a standard that most films will never achieve because they are too concerned with appealing to a family audience or converting to 9.54-D, all in order to make money. Cinema is what is wrong with film at the moment. But that is for another time.
Breaking Bad is the epitome of a good television and other than maybe the Dark Knight Rises there really isn't anything else id rather watch so then surely the end really does justify the means? It is uncompromising, brutal and relentless and that is what makes Breaking Bad so damn good, it does not care what stands in its way, much like Mr White himself, it takes us to the extremes, the extreme of what good viewing is and should be, however they should choose to end the show I can confidently say that the creators will not alter from these truly admirable principles, and that I standby.
Wednesday 27 June 2012
Full Metal Jacket (1987): Love You Long Time
Re-post from: http://thepopcornlounge.blogspot.co.uk/
Yes, why I am quite fine thank you, no you too? Really?
Enough small talk, it has indeed been too long since my last post, but I think this time we will just skip the pleasantries. At some point last week I found myself with a lingering fetish for some Stanley Kubrick (we've all had that right?), I was flicking through my library, I eventually found the 'Great' for Kubrick section and then I had quite the dilemma, which film? How do you decide which Kubrick film to watch, Lolita is pretty ground breaking in terms of story, A Clock Work Orange has one of cinemas best characters, 2001: A Space Odyssey is...well its the greatest odyssey of cinematic artistry ever created, then there is Full Metal Jacket, a war movie, but with a distinct lack of all out war.
This ladies and gentleman is why I chose FMJ, because its a war movie, with a distinct lack of war. I could go into what the film is about and why it is an example of cinematic greatness but if you are reading this then you should already know and if you don't, then get your pathetic little maggot ass back to your Mommas house and go watch the film! Where was I? War. Most war films that we see today feature a lot of heavy battle scenes, huge explosions, and Michael Bay holding a small nuclear device with a manic look on his face. FMJ really breaks the mold in that it moves away from the traditional long shot of 100000000 tanks sweeping across France...its always France. We open in a military boot camp in the US , but instead of shipping our heroes out to experience 'the horror, oh the horror' of war that too often features as a secondary theme in most past and present war films, we get real men fighting as soldiers in a horrific series of events, the Vietnam war.
Kubrick can only be applauded for his bravery in brutally conveying the real horror of war, and that horror is that men become soldiers, and those soldiers too often lose the qualities that anchor them as men. Despite being so established and applauded, I struggle to think of few decent contemporary war films that confront this human toll of conflict and do not also feature an over arching hero complex, that dominates the film. Today we expect our war films to play a game of Call of Duty. In a society that preaches peace why is it that audiences actually want P.O.V camera shots that emphasise the blood splatter of a marine killing a generic terrorist. Why is it our taste in cinema swings between the most PG big budget blockbusters and vile homicidal fantasy. Why is it that mainstream film has evolved or should I say devolved to become completely and utterly emotionless and disconnected from eyes to screen?
FMJ is the film it is because I believe Kubrick purposely creates a brutal and emotionless atmosphere that takes characters, men with personalities and turns them into nothing more than mindless instruments of destruction inside the barrel of a gun. Guns only have one purpose. What is more FMJ not only provides a legitimate philosophical insight into the morality of war but also the morality and ethics of cinema: without emotion and without feeling we become nothing more than mindless zombies. This is my popcorn, there is much like it, but this is mine.
Long live the post-empire...
Yes, why I am quite fine thank you, no you too? Really?
Enough small talk, it has indeed been too long since my last post, but I think this time we will just skip the pleasantries. At some point last week I found myself with a lingering fetish for some Stanley Kubrick (we've all had that right?), I was flicking through my library, I eventually found the 'Great' for Kubrick section and then I had quite the dilemma, which film? How do you decide which Kubrick film to watch, Lolita is pretty ground breaking in terms of story, A Clock Work Orange has one of cinemas best characters, 2001: A Space Odyssey is...well its the greatest odyssey of cinematic artistry ever created, then there is Full Metal Jacket, a war movie, but with a distinct lack of all out war.
This ladies and gentleman is why I chose FMJ, because its a war movie, with a distinct lack of war. I could go into what the film is about and why it is an example of cinematic greatness but if you are reading this then you should already know and if you don't, then get your pathetic little maggot ass back to your Mommas house and go watch the film! Where was I? War. Most war films that we see today feature a lot of heavy battle scenes, huge explosions, and Michael Bay holding a small nuclear device with a manic look on his face. FMJ really breaks the mold in that it moves away from the traditional long shot of 100000000 tanks sweeping across France...its always France. We open in a military boot camp in the US , but instead of shipping our heroes out to experience 'the horror, oh the horror' of war that too often features as a secondary theme in most past and present war films, we get real men fighting as soldiers in a horrific series of events, the Vietnam war.
Kubrick can only be applauded for his bravery in brutally conveying the real horror of war, and that horror is that men become soldiers, and those soldiers too often lose the qualities that anchor them as men. Despite being so established and applauded, I struggle to think of few decent contemporary war films that confront this human toll of conflict and do not also feature an over arching hero complex, that dominates the film. Today we expect our war films to play a game of Call of Duty. In a society that preaches peace why is it that audiences actually want P.O.V camera shots that emphasise the blood splatter of a marine killing a generic terrorist. Why is it our taste in cinema swings between the most PG big budget blockbusters and vile homicidal fantasy. Why is it that mainstream film has evolved or should I say devolved to become completely and utterly emotionless and disconnected from eyes to screen?
FMJ is the film it is because I believe Kubrick purposely creates a brutal and emotionless atmosphere that takes characters, men with personalities and turns them into nothing more than mindless instruments of destruction inside the barrel of a gun. Guns only have one purpose. What is more FMJ not only provides a legitimate philosophical insight into the morality of war but also the morality and ethics of cinema: without emotion and without feeling we become nothing more than mindless zombies. This is my popcorn, there is much like it, but this is mine.
Long live the post-empire...
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