 | | | | | |
| LAPDANCE LARRY |
| SEVENTIES SIMON |
| PHOTOGRAPHY |
| COMIC ART |
| INTERVIEWS |
| Sub-menu 1.2.1.1 |
| FESTIVALS |
| EXHIBITIONS |
Holiday Movie Madness
This year’s holiday movie season features an unusually large number of excellent films worthy of viewing and the usual southern hemisphere weather conditions conducive to sitting in an air-conditioned room.
Favourite film of the season is Fantastic Mr. Fox, a wonderful stop-motion animation take by Wes Anderson of a short children's book by Roald Dahl. It’s a tale of the charming, if slightly over exuberant Mr. Fox, voiced by George Clooney, who gives up his thieving ways (he is a fox after all) to become a card-carrying member of suburbia. This complacency doesn’t last long and soon he is back to his chicken rustling ways and this time he draws in the entire neighbourhood. The film is utterly charming and has that rare ability to keep the children completely engaged while giving the adults in the audience more than enough brain food to keep them interested as well.
Speaking of adults, It’s Complicated is also one of those very rare films, it’s a romantic comedy written for and about middle-aged adults that is actually funny. Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep play a divorced couple that have been separated for a number of years. The time apart and even Baldwin’s new wife doesn’t prevent them from having a saucy affaire. Director Nancy Meyers (The Holiday) gets the nuances just right and there are a number of very funny scenes, including one of the funniest pot smoking scenes ever put on film.
Guy Ritchie’s reinvention of Sherlock Holmes is also an interesting one. It’s the most modern looking film of the season and one based on the oldest story (the character of Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print in 1887). It’s fast paced and full of modern film effects. Computer generated mayhem, slow motion fights scenes and an impressive digital reproduction of London way back when are just a few of its highlights. It also features one of the most bromantic pairings in film history as Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson do just about everything together but get a room.
The Lovely Bones splits the audience’s preference down the middle with most females in the crowd showing the love for this tale from beyond the grave, while most males seemed more than indifferent about the whole thing. The people that have read the book also seem more than enamoured. Peter Jackson has lost none of his visual sense and the film looks fantastic while it jumps between the world of the living and the dead. Its pacing is slow and thoughtful and it does raise some fascinating questions but this viewer found the answers less than riveting.
Finally we have Nowhere Boy, a tale of the early years of John Lennon leading up to the beginning of The Beatles. This period piece sees England at the start of the swinging sixties and shows Lennon to be a very talented lad and more than just a bit of a prat. We get to see the majority of the complications in Lennon’s early life that lead to him becoming such an enigma of an adult. His mistreatment of almost all the women in his adult live is given motivations here. The music is of course wonderful and the acting by the less than famous ensemble cast is very effective. For those Beatle fans please note that the music presented here predates the fab four’s output.
All in all, it’s been a great end (movie-wise) to a year that featured a number of films that will live long in memory and a few that will help show the way towards the future.
Rob Hudson
| also featured |
| WIN With Modmove! Creation – Win In-season Tickets Thanks to Icon Films, we have three in-season double passes to give away to Creation! Read more >> Inception It's tempting to review Inception simply by saying, "it's just such a Nolan film" and leave it at that as that short statement embodies just about every complementary declaration that can be made about possibly the finest director currently working in Hollywood. Read more >> Greenberg For those of you who have seen Noah Baumbach’s work like Margot At The Wedding and The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg will be covering familiar ground. Read more >> The Runaways Why? This is the question that remains after viewing The Runaways, a rockudrama about the band of the title which begat the career of Joan Jett. Read more >> Knight and Day Will Tom Cruise’s role in Knight And Day provide the Lazarus like resurrection of his popular appeal or become just a blip of the radar? Read more >> Toy Story 3 Has it really been 15 years since the first toy story hit our screens? Not in my house it's not! Read more >> Get Him To The Greek Does Get Him To The Greek, the latest movie from the Judd Apatow and friends universe add or subtract to the lexicon of successful raunchy teen comedies? Read more >> Lou Faced with having all her belongings repossessed by door-knocking creditors, 27 year-old single mother of 3, Rhia (Emily Barclay), takes in her father-in-law, Doyle (John Hurt), in order to procure his carer's allowance. Read more >> Shrek Forever After After the hiccup of Shrek The Third, the latest addition to this established franchise tries its best to reinvigorate the series. Read more >> Legion The time has come. The end is here. We've all been very naughty. It's time to pay the piper. It's time for all of humanity to snuff it. Oh dear. But fear not! Paul Bettany has cut off his wings and rallied to our cause. Get ready for the WWE Angelic Smackdown™! (But only on pay-per-view.) Read more >> Harry Brown Harry Brown (Michael Caine) is a retired marine eking out a modest existence in his tenement housing estate, witnessing with disgust the violence and immorality gripping his neighbourhood. Read more >> |
| Stay up to date with modmove news |
| about modmove |
| What to know how we got started? Read more >> |
| read the modmove blog |
| Check out all the random stuff that didn't make it to the website! Read more >> |
| contact Us |
| If you have any queries or if you would like more information about modmove, we would love to hear from you! Read more >> |
| join our mailing list |
| subscribe to the mailing list and receive the modmove newsletter. |
| search |
| search modmove for previous news and reviews. |