Tag Archives: Gary Oldman

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) Review – Exploring the Past

Posted on by
1

TL;DR – It is a profoundly emotional work that builds on the first film in nearly every way.   

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film.

Caesar in war paint.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review –

It has been ten years since this movie first came out, and I was taken aback by just how good visual effects had grown, even by the high standards that the Lord of the Rings brought us. But with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes coming out this week, I wanted to take a moment to go back in time and see how well this second entry before War of the Planet of the Apes holds up.

So to set the scene, it has been ten years since the Simian Flu pandemic spread across the globe with a survival rate of only 1 in 500, as was seen at the end of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. As human society completely collapsed, the ape colony founded by Caesar (Andy Serkis) began to thrive in the growing woods outside of what was once San Francisco. It has been two years since they even saw a human, which made that first sound of a gun going off echo throughout the colony. One of the few human settlements left on the Earth has set up shop in the ruins of San Francisco. Caesar does not acquiesce to the drum beats of war but gives the humans an ultimatum: stay away from their area. Peace has a chance, just as long as no one on either side decides to fall on the animosity of the past.     

Continue reading →

Oppenheimer – Movie Review

Posted on by
9

TL;DR – A visual spectacle and a masterclass in dissecting a complicated life.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Warning – Contains a scene that may cause distress.

Exploding Flames.

Oppenheimer Review –

Every now and again, my old life and new life collide in interesting ways. All those years of teaching and exploring Arms Control and Disarmament finally became relevant in my current career. The story of the Manhattan Project is fascinating, as was the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose scope I doubt even three hours can completely cover. But given my general love of Christopher Nolan’s work [see Inception and Dunkirk], I knew I could not miss this one.

So to set the scene, the world is at war as Germany marches across Europe and Japan across the Pacific. This is already a dangerous predicament, but the world of theoretical physics has been running leaps and bounds forward, and everyone can see the endpoint, a bomb, a bomb of devastating potential. What happens if the Nazis get a bomb that can destroy cities? As the world scrambles, only one person in America can lead the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). However, his past might contain more problems than the government can handle.

Continue reading →

Movie Review – The Laundromat

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – A film with good intentions that nevertheless ends up talking down to its audience rather than empowering them as it is trying to do.    

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

The Laundromat. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

I think it is a good description of the world at the moment that a couple of years ago one of the biggest leaks of information that changed how we look at the entire banking sector and we have kind of forgotten about it. The Panama Papers was this huge revelation but it is almost surprising that we have not seen anyone try to encapsulate it in media form before now. Well, today we look at a film that does just that, in a weird, slightly absurdist way.

So to set the scene, we open in on Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep) who along with her husband Joe (James Cromwell) is starting the celebrations of their wedding anniversary by taking a boat tour of a local lake. Tragedy strikes when Captain Richard Paris (Robert Patrick) misses a rogue wave and is not able to turn the boat in time causing it to capsize killing Joe and many others. Ellen’s grief is amplified when they find out while the boat tour company thought they were insured, it was all fraud, a fake company, based out of a shell corporation, hidden behind a trust. Leading her down the well of how the wealthy hide their money.

Continue reading →

Countdown – My Personal Top 10 Films of All Time List

Posted on by
36

TL;DR – Today we countdown my Top 10 films of all time; from towns where there are a lot of ‘accidents’, to all forms of Sci-Fi, to do you know the man with six fingers on his right hand, and everything in between.

Countdown –

Recently I watched the CineFix crew countdown their Top 10 films, and it had me thinking what are mine? Now it was at this point where I of course naturally spiralled as how can you reduce thousands of films that you have seen into only a Top 10. Just before I threw my hands up in resignation and chucked in the towel I happened to catch an episode of Movies with Mikey on how he determined the best sequel. With this in mind I wondered if there was a set of criteria that I could use to categorise the films into a list that I would be happy with, and after some work, I came up with the following criteria that work for me.

  • Films that are beautifully constructed
  • Films that mean something to me
  • Films that are always re-watchable
  • Films that have added to my love of the craft of cinema

With this criterion in mind I went through all the likely candidates and with a bit of a struggle I think I have been able to come to a final list, well at least until I change my mind next week, which is always a chance.

Continue reading →

Movie Review – TAU

Posted on by
2

TL;DR – TAU is one of those films where there is an interesting core of an idea here, but then really the movie spends almost all of its time not exploring it.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no Post-Credit Scene

TAU. Image Credit: Netflix

Review –

Watching a good film can be joyful, watching a bad film can at least be interesting, but watching a film that clearly had potential only to not deliver on it … well, that can be torturous. This week we look at TAU a film that unfortunately falls into the latter category. It is a film that is trying to take the AI computer genre in a different direction but unfortunately falls into just being a pastiche of other films, and not even a very good version of that.

Continue reading →

Movie Review – Darkest Hour

Posted on by
1

TL;DR – A beautifully realised look at the world of British politics on the onset of WW2, but it loses some of its impact with an unclear portrayal of its central protagonist.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – No

Darkest Hour Banner

Review –

Well, today we are looking at our third Dunkirk related film in the last year. Dunkirk (see review) looked at the retreat on the ground, sea, and air, Their Finest (see review) looked at how Britain used the retreat to mobilise the populace, and now Darkest Hour looks at the politics behind it all. Today we are exploring the rise of Winston Churchill from being an outsider of the political spectrum to a wartime ruler facing the might of Hitler and his European blitzkrieg. So in today’s review, we are going to look at the acting and how it captured that moment in time.

Continue reading →

Movie Review – The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Posted on by
4

TL;DR – A good case study on why it is so important to get your casting right

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

P.S. – There is an end credit thingy

The Hitman's Bodyguard. Image Credit: Lionsgate.

Review –

Making a film is a very difficult process, at every point, there are decisions that you need to make, some of which can make or break your film, and you might not even know what the outcome is until the film is released. Should you rewrite your dark realistic film to be a comedy week’s out from shooting, it’s a big risk, but it is one that I think made The Hitman’s Bodyguard a better film, or at least a film that suited its cast much better. Though before we go on, while I kind of liked it, you need to know it is a type of film that I’m pretty sure the f@#$ counter is in triple digits, and you probably know just from that if this is a movie for you.

Continue reading →