Category Archives: A
God damn it I have been slacking off recently. Had all sorts of things pre-occupying my time though what with my recent redundancy. But now I am unemployed and so have nothing better to do than watch films and write reviews. Well, other than try to find a new job that is. 90 reviews ago I covered Alien, and right before that Prometheus. I did toy with the idea of doing a season of all the Alien series but I was headed to Sweden for a few days at that point and decided I’d just skip the review season idea. This may or may not have also been because I really don’t want to watch Alien Resurrection and the two Alien Vs Predator films. I will get to them someday, but believe me, I am in no rush. So, Aliens then. Click the link.
Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away? Cos I hope so, it’ll make me look better.
Leave a comment | tags: Alien, Aliens, Film Dump, Films, Monsters, Movies, Reviews, Sci-Fi | posted in A, Action, Genres, Movie reviews, Sci-Fi
During 2012 a number of films were released that could almost be seen as love letters to the history of cinema. We had Hugo which featured the early career of George Melies and many silent cinema nods. Cabin In The Woods played out as one huge love up/damnation of the horror genre which simultaneously paid tribute to classic horror whilst showing you how horror worked and, by proxy, how simple horror has recently become. Mark Cousins released a beautiful 15 hour long film about the Story Of Film which is a must watch for any film fans. Today’s film is another of these tributes to classic cinema in the form of The Artist. At The Oscars last year it was The Artist and Hugo that swept up a lot of the awards, which kinda says a lot about how nostalgic the Oscar committee are. Does The Artist manage to be more than just a tribute to the early days of cinema? Well, click the link for my irrelevant views.
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2 comments | tags: bernice bejo, Comedy, Drama, Film Dump, Films, Movies, oscars, Reviews, Silent films, The Artist, World Cinema | posted in A, Comedy, Drama, Genres, Movie reviews, Silent, World Cinema
This is it. It’s all over now. The Roger Moore era is finished. All I have to do is get this review out the way and I can get onto the clown suit and space adventure free Timothy Dalton era. So as A View To A Kill opens James Bond is completing a mission in Siberia to recover a microchip, he naturally gets attacked. Bond makes his escape by skiing away… Isn’t this like the 4th ski chase? He gets on a snow-mobile which promptly gets destroyed. This doesn’t stop Bond though as he takes the front ski of the snow-mobile and snowboards over the glacier… And then a cover of The Beach Boys Californian Girls starts playing. Ugh. Its 1985 and director John Glen has just made the brand new sport of Snowboarding look outdated by playing The Beach Boys over it. I guess we’re still undermining drama with poor attempts at humour then. On with the review…
What does “A View To A Kill” even mean anyway?
Leave a comment | tags: 007, Bond, Film Dump, Films, James Bond, max zorin, Movies, Reviews | posted in A, Action, Bond Film Reviews, Genres, Movie reviews, Thriller
Sorry about he slight break with these reviews. I started a secondary blog called The Games Dump with which to post mostly video based content about games. Turns out I’m a really slow editor and easily distracted and so it took me 2 weeks to finish a simple 9 minute video. Because of that I struggled to find the time to write a review. But that video is done and now I’m back on track for some movie based writing. Today’s review is for the paranoia thriller-cum-romance The Adjustment Bureau. Click the link for my review.
Fun fact: I finally learned how to spell the word “bureau” today.
1 comment | tags: Film Dump, Films, Movies, Reviews, Sci-Fi | posted in A, Movie reviews, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Some films exist for the sake of art. Some for the sake of entertainment. But some, such as the subject of today’s review, exist for the sake of business. Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire walked from Spider-Man 4 shortly before production began due to issues with production dates and so almost immediately Sony got to work on a reboot of the Spidey series. They kind of had to though. If they hadn’t the Spider-Man license would have reverted back to Marvel and we’d probably have Spider-Man in our Avengers by now. Thankfully though Sony didn’t go the same route as the original Fantastic Four film did when it was faced with asimilar dilemma. Instead they knuckled down, put together a good crew headed by a strong director and got to work on The Amazing Spider-Man. And I’ve just seen it. Click the link for the review…
Does whatever a reviewer can.
2 comments | tags: 3D, Film Dump, Films, Movies, norman osborn, Reviews, Spider-man, Super Heroes | posted in A, Action, Fantasy, Genres, Movie reviews
When I was a kid I used to watch Herge’s Adventures of Tintin on Channel 4 here in the UK. It was a pretty cool adventure cartoon series but it was never my favourite. I grew up at the exact time Transformers blew up and so you can understand why the adventures of a boy, his dog and a drunken sea captain wasn’t my top show. That said I’ve always enjoyed and respected the work of Herge’s Tintin despite it’s complete lack of giant robots that turn into cars.. Enough for me to approach this Tintin movie with a little bit of caution. Mostly that caution was down to the two main creative forces behind the film, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. Neither have been putting out there best works in recent years, both have been overly prone to either self indulgence or misguided ideas. Both issues show up here but thankfully not so much as to damage the film. Click the link for my full review.
SPIELBERG’S ADVENTURES OF TINTIIIINNNNN!!!!
Leave a comment | tags: 3D, adventures of tintin, Animation, captain haddock, crab with the golden claws, Edgar Wright, Film Dump, film steven spielberg, Films, Movies, Reviews, tintin movie | posted in A, Action, Animation, Genres, Movie reviews
So a few hours before seeing Prometheus yesterday I got talked into watching Alien in anticipation of the new film. Literally watched Alien and left for the midnight showing of Prometheus. Now I love Alien. It’s one of my favourite films of all time, up there with Chinatown, Double Indemnity and Ghostbusters. That said I had never seen the director’s cut version. I purchased a copy back when it was released on DVD but couldn’t bring myself to watch it. For some reason the idea of watching a re-cut version of one of my favourite films bothered me. I was worried something would be lost or that, worse yet, Ridley Scott would have done something distasteful to one of my most loved films. A while back I got around to watching the Final Cut of Bladerunner. It was very good. It may be my favourite version of that film. So when a friend suggested we watch the director’s cut of Alien I thought, screw it. I can’t avoid it forever. Click the link to see if I nerd raged.
Needs more phallic symbols.
Leave a comment | tags: Alien, Film Dump, Films, Horror, Movies, Reviews, ridley scott, Sci-Fi | posted in A, Genres, Horror, Movie reviews, Sci-Fi
Well isn’t that odd, I’m reviewing two films with the same name one after the other. I hope no-one got confused or thinks I did that on purpose. Just so you know, this review right here is for Marvel’s The Avengers, or Avengers Assemble as they’re calling it here in the UK. Apparently they actually think their core audience is aware of the 60s TV series that my last film review was based on. So I guess if you’ve found your way to this review via a search you’re probably already aware of just how good this film has turned out. Which I guess makes me reviewing it pointless then. Oh well. Bye!
Fine I’ll review it!
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!!!!
8 comments | tags: 3D, Captain America, Film Dump, Films, Hulk, Iron Man, Movies, Reviews, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sci-Fi, Super Heroes, The Avengers, Thor | posted in A, Action, Genres, Movie reviews, Sci-Fi
It’s April 25th. It’s one year since The Film Dump was birthed onto the interwebs and so I have decided it would be appropriate to review something special. A film people will remember for years… for being a great big pile of balls. Yes, The Avengers is a terrible, terrible film. Shame cos the 60s TV series it was based on should have been easy to translate onto film. What? You thought I meant The Avengers as in Marvel’s The Avengers with Iron Guy and Captain Superman and all that? Oh, sorry.
If you’re looking for my review of Marvel’s the Avengers then click here. Or just got to the next review up…
You were expecting someone else?
1 comment | tags: Film Dump, Movies, Reviews, The Avengers, Warner Bros. | posted in A, Action, Genres, Movie reviews
Did anyone see the new BBC version of the Borrowers over Christmas? I missed it but I did catch a little. It was putrid. Arrietty seemed to be some horrible little mouthy chav girl and it appeared to be that the sole reason for making it was because someone at BBC HQ said “Hey, let’s modernise The Borrowers for no good reason”. Speaking of modernising The Borrowers here’s Arrietty from Studio Ghibli. It’s set in Japan in the space year 2010 and you know what, it doesn’t detract from the original story in the slightest. Click the tiny to read the review.
I prefer Branston Human Beans to Heinz
3 comments | tags: Animation, anime, Film Dump, Movies, Reviews, Studio Ghibli | posted in A, Animation, Fantasy, Genres, Movie reviews
