https://www.thefilmagazine.com/kurosawa-mifune-film-collaborations/ SSP
Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune: Cinema’s Greatest Collaborations
Posted in Film, Film Feature, The Film Magazine
Tagged Akira Kurosawa, Stray Dog, The Bad Sleep Well, Throne of Blood, Toshirô Mifune, World Cinema, Yojimbo
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Review in Brief: Oppenheimer (2023)
Of all Nolan’s films, OPPENHEIMER is the sexy one?! A 3 hour, talky, philosophical character drama isn’t most people’s idea of a must-see crowd-pleaser, but it’s making waves. The time taken and the deliberate pacing, paired with stylistic signifiers of differing points of view and warped takes on reality makes this one hell of an intensive and fascinating character study. In a typically Nolan, non-chronological fashion, we follow J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) the “Father of the Atom Bomb”, his race against time during WWII to deliver the weapon and his fall from grace in the decade that followed. Murphy’s transcendent central performance threatens to overwhelm the rest of this talented ensemble (Robert Downey Jr and Matt Damon still stand out) but everyone gets at least one showstopping moment. What will stay with you the most beyond individual wondrous and terrifying images is the unrelenting wall of sound, the encroaching sound of guilt and our doom. SSP
Posted in Film, Film Review, Review in Brief
Tagged Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Drama, Historical Drama, Oppenheimer, Robert Downey Jr, Thriller
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Review in Brief: Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
As impressive as the bike jump off a cliff is, that’s only the appetiser in a particularly audacious action finale. In the particularly relevant, perhaps penultimate Mission: Impossible, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team battle an AI that has gained self-awareness and is sewing chaos and the threat of nuclear war across the world. DEAD RECKONING PART ONE is touching on three hours but somehow doesn’t feel like it. Famously, since Christopher McQuarrie took over the reigns of the franchise, ideas for action scenes are thought up first and the script weaved between them, so the final product is miraculously coherent considering. The scale and stakes have never been higher and Cruise and the cast, particularly new addition Hayley Atwell, couldn’t be more game for whatever madness is thrown at them. What on earth will they come up with for Part Two? SSP
Peter Weir Films Ranked
Posted in Film, Film Feature, The Film Magazine
Tagged Dead Poets Society, Fearless, Gallipoli, Green Card, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Cars That Ate Paris, The Last Wave, The Mosquito Coast, The Truman Show, The Way Back, The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness
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‘Blade’ at 25 – Review
Posted in Film, Film Review, The Film Magazine
Tagged Blade, Horror, Stephen Dorff, Stephen Norrington, Superhero Movie, Wesley Snipes
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Review in Brief: Return to Seoul (2022/23)
This year has seen two very different films exploring different sides of the South Korean adoption industry, first Kore-ada’s BROKER and now RETURN TO SEOUL. Davy Chou’s film throws up questions of mismatched culture and heritage as the Korean-born, French-raised Freddie (Park Ji-min in an astonishing debut) returns on a whim to the country where her parents gave her away 25 years earlier and attempts to track them down with the help of her endlessly patient friend Tena (Guka Han, who imbues the simple question “why are you so sad?” with the rawest of emotion). We subsequently drop in on the sometimes abrasive but always compelling Freddie and the ups and downs of her life over the next decade. After the initial strained meeting with Freddie’s biological father (Oh Kwang-rok), the film constantly wrong-foots you and goes in some unexpected directions but is always in service of its contradictory, complicated lead character. SSP
Posted in Film, Film Review, Review in Brief
Tagged Davy Chou, Drama, Guka Han, Oh Kwang-rok, Park Ji-min, World Cinema
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Review in Brief: One Fine Morning (2022/23)
Mia Hansen-Løve’s latest deals with hardships we will all face to one extent or another, and particularly the elderly care crisis in contemporary France with nuance, pragmatism and maturity. Paris native Sandra (Léa Seydoux) has a lot on her plate, being a lonely single mum desperate for intimacy, also balancing a busy work schedule as a translator and having to consider care options for her ailing academic father (Pascal Greggory). ONE FINE MORNING is a tough watch at times but it’s not without hope, passion and humour. Seydoux’s lead performance is honest and unadorned and the rest of the ensemble bring multiple shades to Sandra’s family and social circle. Hansen-Løve has explored the demands of supporting parents in decline while not losing your sense of self to the commitment before in films like THINGS TO COME, and here she presents Sandra’s quest for connection over multiple seasons of the year with a hopeful ellipses by the end. SSP
Posted in Film, Film Review, Review in Brief
Tagged Drama, Film, Léa Seydoux, Mia Hansen-Løve, One Fine Morning, Pascal Greggory, World Cinema
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Review in Brief: The Flash (2023)
The final gag almost makes it all worth it. What’s been saddest about seeing the slow decline of the failed DC shared movie universe is the frankly obscene amount of money and talent that’s gone to waste particularly over the last five years. This film, that loosely adapts the “Flashpoint” storyline from the comics sees Barry Allen / The Flash (Ezra Miller) use his super-speed to travel back in time to prevent his mother’s murder and his father’s false imprisonment and in the process changes the course of history and tears open the multiverse. Michael Keaton’s return to the role of Bruce Wayne / Batman after three decades is a joy, when he’s actually on screen and not a more agile digital double, and the under-used Sasha Calle as Super Girl makes for a restrained, burdened contrast to the irritatingly hyper and giggly younger Barry. But whatever early charm THE FLASH has soon gets weighed down by misjudged multiverse fanservice and never quite deciding what it’s trying to say. SSP
Posted in Film, Film Review, Review in Brief
Tagged Andy Muscietti, Blockbuster, DC, Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Superhero Movie, The Flash
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Review in Brief: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
All I wanted was something better than KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. It is, but only just. Given its old-fashioned adventure story origins, an Indiana Jones movie should never feel video-gamey, but during its opening and final act set pieces DIAL OF DESTINY this disappointingly does. Elsewhere it’s more promising and more fun, with a septuagenarian Indy (Harrison Ford) reluctantly recruited by his formidable goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) to find Archimedes’ legendary temporal-shifting dial before the Nazis (them again) do. You get all of the franchise greatest hits from elaborate puzzles in ancient temples to encounters with nasty beasties and various chases on an assortment of modes of transport all accompanied by John Williams’ uplifting orchestration. Ford is at his growly best until unexpected moments of humour or vulnerability shine through the cracks and it’s great to see Waller-Bridge get to play such a kick-ass role for a change, but most of the rest of the cast are disposable and by the end you find yourself asking, was that it? SSP
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