By Niall Anderson
As every Cineplexer knows, summer is the season of revamps and remakes, and this summer is as full of them as any. But there are revamps and then there are revamps. Choose, for example, from the following: Continue reading Mostly Links – 22 July 2011
By Niall Anderson
If last week was the week of dodgy cover-ups, then this has been the week of big revelations. We now know, for instance, that Spike Lee has been confirmed to direct that remake of Oldboy, where before we could only speculate. But does the confirmation honestly make you feel any better? Sure, we can now anticipate seeing Denzel Washington eating a live octopus and developing an unhealthy crush on a waitress young enough to be his daughter (Jaden Smith), but is that really good news? Continue reading Mostly Links – 15 July 2011
BY NIALL ANDERSON
This week has been thronged with things coming to light that somebody, somewhere in a position of power, knew about already. Things they didn’t want us to see. No, not just Ben Miller’s Huge. Not even Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialisme. I’m talking about important things. Things like how Marlon Brando patented his own tuneable congo drums. Or that Spike Lee is in talks to remake Oldboy. Surprising things that make you wonder what kind of world you’re living in. Continue reading Mostly Links – 8 July 2011
BY NIALL ANDERSON
Mostly Film spent last weekend at Glastonbury. Every year, millions of pixels are indiscriminately slaughtered to convince the public that it’s the best fun they never had. We will refrain. Let it just be said that your life will be made briefly but appreciably better if you watch Janelle Monáe’s astonishing performance from Saturday night. Viewers outside the UK will have to make do with edited highlights, but still, not since Prince in his absolute pomp, etc.
By coincidence, this week Mostly Film will be going to see Prince, but we promise not to mention it. Unless Tricky turns up again. Or Limahl. Or, you know, anyone who Prince bafflingly thinks is cool.
Stepping briefly away from the corporatisation of fun, we turn to taking the piss out of corporations. What should an advertisement for KFC look like? Peter Serafinowicz has an idea that I’m sure the Colonel will love. Continue reading Mostly Links – 1 July 2011
by Indy Datta
It’s not like I don’t remember how insanely duff John Lasseter’s original Cars was. It’s not like I have no sympathy for all my friends who’ve had kids in the years since it came out and have had to contend with its surprise emergence as the Mouse’s irresistible merchandising juggernaut. But its just such a nice change for the release of a Pixar movie (Cars 2, out in the US this week) not to come accompanied by the usual wave of idiotic hyperbole (“When those toys were getting sucked into the incinerator, I thought, could Pixar actually do this to us? This is the most death-confronting sneakily adult masterpiece since Schindler’s List! I would have cried but after Wall*E I have no tears left.”). So I’m kind of rooting for it here, it’s an underdog thing. Although it’s presumably going to get murdered at the box office next week by Transformers 3, the trailer for which, I am slightly ashamed to admit, is possibly the most exciting thing I have seen since, in fact, I first opened my eyes.
by Indy Datta
Even as we speak, Mostly Film’s roving reviewers Matthew Turner and Uncle Frank (not, as far as I know, Matthew’s actual Uncle Frank) are subjecting themselves to a punishing screening, partying, and Nando’s eating schedule that will ensure that our forthcoming coverage of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011 will be second to none available on the world wide web.
by Indy Datta
I think I’m going to spare you my thoughts on the BBFC’s refusal to certify The Human Centipede 2 and, as a bonus, I’ll spare you from everybody else’s thoughts as well. Instead, why not amuse yourself by thinking up punchlines to the following satirical joke: “The Tories, eh? Riots, recession, and video nasties: what are they going to bring back from the early 80’s next? __________________ ??!!”. You can’t have “snoods”, though, because they’re banned too.
by Indy Datta
Pictured are just a few of the wild horses that would be required to drag me into a screening of X-Men: First Class this weekend. But the reviews have generally been positive, and even some of the negative ones have been kind to the purported talents of Matthew Vaughn.
by Indy Datta
Mel Gibson must be quietly relieved he skipped the Cannes press conference for The Beaver (no link: I have some standards). Poor old Lars von Trier, eh, all those critically acclaimed movies and you just express sympathy for Hitler once, and you end up being declared persona non grata – a decision that looks so bizarrely humourless that one ironically assumes that it must be some kind of joke. Far be it from me to suggest that all this is more than quite likely to be more entertaining than Melancholia, which has been probably the most critically divisive film of the Cannes competition so far, with some saying masterpiece and some saying meh-sterpiece.
by Indy Datta
The Cannes Film Festival has just kicked off, and like any self-respecting film nerd with an incipient gambling problem, I’ve already had a flutter on the winner of the Palme d’Or. Sadly, the early reviews suggest that my punt on rank outsider Sleeping Beauty may not be the making of my first million.
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