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Review of Pan Am
I have to be careful criticising Pan Am because the last time I watched something ironically it was Spartacus, and that grew into something very special; what appeared at first to be a po-faced, poor-man's 300 ended up with drama, pathos and Lucy Lawless having sex with other ladies. →
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Review of Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tomas Alfredson's slow-burning, balletic adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is rich in atmosphere, dripping with character and repressed emotion. →
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Review of Kenneth Branagh’s Thor
Kenneth Branagh's Thor always seemed like it would be the hardest comic adaptation to fit convincingly into the shared universe Marvel have been piecing together for a few years now. Despite lacking the same level of public recognition as some of the other heroes, and having a magical background that could have felt out of kilter with the rest of the technology-borne ensemble, Thor has turned out to be one of the more solid and enjoyable Marvel films so far. →
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Review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The endless slew of remakes, reboots and prequels only gets more complicated with every year. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is, as far as I can tell, a remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, a prequel to an as-yet unmade remake of the original Planet of the Apes (or perhaps an as-yet unmade remake of the remake of the original Planet of the Apes) and a reboot of the entire Apes series, all of which was based on a book. We live in confusing times. →
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Reaper
I'm thinking of a new policy of only watching TV shows after they've been cancelled, so I know the level of commitment expected of me. Lexx, an occasionally-brilliant, mostly-awful show ended after four seasons; easy to get through them despite the rapidly-plummeting quality because the finish line was always visible. Lost, on the other hand, I watched as it was broadcast and I abandoned the show in the third season because with no end in sight it was starting to feel like I was in purgatory. →
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Review of Captain America
Captain America: The First Avenger is a mildly enjoyable period romp where some staid action and the tawdry whiff of prequel is just about held together by a decent script and likeable characters. Very much a popcorn film; you might enjoy it at the time but you're probably not going to reminisce about it later. →
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Review of X-Men: First Class
Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class is a welcome return to form for the X-Men franchise after the risible X-Men: Last Stand and the sloppy Wolverine origins story. The '60s setting allows for a lighter tone than previous instalments but Michael Fassbender's intensity as Erik Lehnsherr takes the film to some dark places. →
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Review of Little White Lies
A follow-up to the well-received thriller Tell No One, Little White Lies is unfortunately smug, tedious drivel that overstays its welcome for at least an hour. This review contains spoilers, but if you haven't seen it then that's ok because it means you'll be able to leave the cinema after only 90 minutes instead of the full, gruelling 150. →
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Duncan Jones’ Source Code
In Duncan Jones' Source Code, Air force pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) has to work out who bombed a train but only has the same eight-minute period to live through each time, a bit like Murder on the Orient Express if Poirot was knifed in the chest at the end of every chapter. →
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Black Swan fails to impress
Black Swan, its cast and crew apparently scheduled to be showered with Academy Awards and such, is the second Aronofsky film -- the first being The Wrestler -- that's left me wondering what everyone else is seeing that I'm not. →
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The Walking Dead
A typical episode of The Walking Dead is pretty much how I'd imagine a real zombie apocalypse would be; incredibly boring for about 90% of the time, teeth-grabbingly exciting for the remaining ten. →
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Review of The Secret of Kells
Remember when you were off sick from school, and because it wasn't during an official school holiday, the only thing on TV was day time television and S4C? If you were lucky, Channel 4 would be showing some animated films from eastern Europe or somewhere; they smelt vaguely of education but at least they weren't Pebble Mill. Later in life, you would discover that you'd seen Jan Švankmajer's Alice and would feel quietly smug. The Secret of Kells is one of those films. →
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Babylon 5: A retrospective
By and large, Babylon 5, the SF show created by J. Michael Straczynski during the late '90s, is almost indefensibly poor. I say this as a fan; of the main series, at least a third of it is borderline unwatchable. Of the spin-offs and made-for-TV films, I have nothing good to say. →
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Edgar Wright and the videogame aesthetic
The videogame film adaptation has a sorry history. Street Fighter; Super Mario Bros.; almost the entire filmography of Uwe Boll. That the barely-passable Tomb Raider with Angeline Jolie is generally seen as the pinnacle of the game to film transition speaks volumes. →
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Why I like the rumours of Jon Hamm being the next Superman
Mad Men star Jon Hamm has recently been rumoured to be taking on the role of Superman in the upcoming Man of Steel, to be produced by Christopher Nolan and written by David Goyer. I would never have thought of Hamm myself but now the idea is there, it seems perfect to me. →
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The Eighth Doctor
Having eventually enjoyed the modern-day RTD-helmed reboot of Doctor Who and what is arguably its second modern-day reboot in the form of the fairytale-style Moffat and Smith series, I thought it was worth giving the failed 1996 reboot a second look to see why it never made it. In a nutshell: it's because it does almost everything wrong. →
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Some thoughts on The Avengers
Comic-Con saw confirmation that Joss Whedon is to be the director of Marvel's upcoming The Avengers, an attempt at pulling off what is commonplace in the comic world; bringing headline stars from various comics into one single whole. →
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Inception
Inception plays as if Christopher Nolan was in a pub one night and an angry drunk shouted "Oi! Nolan! Think you're clever with your intertwining narratives and chronological playfulness? I bet you can't juggle five different threads at once though, spacially, temporally and in a coherent and entertaining fashion!", and Nolan went off and did it, just to prove a point. He succeeds, but at the expense of characterisation and a sense of any meaning or purpose. →
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The Book of Eli
The Book of Eli is a decent post-apocalypse film largely devoid of the 'destroyed landmarks' porn that often affects this genre, feeling more like an Eastwood-era western set in the world of Fallout 3, with heavy overtones of Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz and suggestions of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. →
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The Killer Inside Me
The Killer Inside Me, adapted from the 1952 Jim Thompson pulp novel of the same name by genre-hopping British director Michael Winterbottom is a film both stylish and shockingly brutal in equal measure. →