Woody Allen has been making movies for a long time. He made his first movie, What’s up, Tiger Lily? in 1966 and 35 years later he is still going strong. I’m not always a big fan of his type of humour but I usually give his movies a try. Is Midnight in Paris worth watching? Continue reading
Through all my years of movie watching I had never seen any of the Marx brothers movies. Surely I had heard of them and knew what Groucho Marx looked like, but I didn’t know about their movies and their comedy. It was time to finally see why one of their movies, Duck Soup, has been in the IMDB top 250 for ages and is mentioned is so many comedy lists. Continue reading
Louis de Funès was one of the funniest French comedians who has made a big number of movies. As a kid I always liked watching them as he was always funny and when he got angry he had so much energy that it you coulnd’t help but laugh. As I grew up I never watched his movies again until I was asked by a family member if I had ever seen Fantômas. I never did and didn’t hear of it either, so decided to watch it. Is this the type of movie I remember watching when I was young? Continue reading
When growing up I didn’t watch as many movies as I do now. I did watch E.T. and I remember it one of the few movies that made me cry the moment E.T. was dying. It’s that movie magic which Spielberg is a master of and as a kid you were connecting to the kids in the movie. I missed out on a lot of the other movies starring groups of kids, so I only saw movies like The Goonies and Stand By Me fairly recently. They all have this feeling of adventure and keeping something secret from the adults.
J.J. Abrams obviously has been inspired by these type of movies and wrote and directed Super 8, which tells the story of a couple of kids, living in a small American town in the eighties, that sneak out at night to shoot their own zombie movie. They witness a big train crash and after this everything changes around their town. The movie was produced by Spielberg (who also helped with the story), but can J.J.Abrams work his magic on a coming of age story the same way Spielberg can? Continue reading
Catherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart star in The African Queen. Set in Africa during the first world war Rose Sayer (Hepburn) runs a missionary post together with her brother. The Germans invade the country and leave Rose with no other option to leave the place by getting on board the African Queen, a little steamboat that’s run by Charlie Allnut (Bogart). The two don’t want to get captured and decide to see if they can do some damage to the Germans. The only problem is that the part of the river they have to go through is said to be impenetrable, with fast rapids and overgrown parts. To make matters worse the two can’t get along very well either. Continue reading
In this movie Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are supposedly playing a version of themselves as they make a journey through the north of Great Britain. Coogan has been asked by The Observer to visit a couple of restaurants to write reviews about them. Originally his girlfriend would join him, but when she backs out of it, he decides to invite Brydon to join him. Continue reading
There are some movies that have something magical. Something that keeps you glued to the screen and care a lot for its characters. La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful) is one of those movies that manages to enchant you. It initially is a very comedic and fun story, but slowly drama creeps into the movie and after watching it you will be heartbroken. Continue reading
You take a street kid gang, a couple of gangsters, a building block in the suburbs of London and some aliens, mix them together and the result of it is Attack the Block. Is it a result worth seeing? Continue reading
Sports movies, it’s a genre which I’m not a really big fan of. Maybe it is because in general I don’t watch sports either, but in general they are usually movies about and underdog (or a group) who manage, by training hard, to reach a specific goal. Of course this is a generalisation that can be made for other kind of movies as well, but in this case it’s something I don’t gravitate towards.
Take Off is a Korean movie about a team of ski jumpers who have no experience in jumping and who have been brought together to give Korea a chance to host the Olympics. It’s a movie which is very loosely based on real events. The movie was a big success in Korea and was seen at the cinema by almost 8 million people. Enough reason for me to give this movie a chance despite my feelings about the genre. Continue reading
After the success of the Matrix trilogy (of which I think only the first one was really good) the Wachowskis were a “hot property” in Hollywood. With their love for comics, they wrote them for Marvel before they started making movies, they adapted V for Vendetta to the big screen. It turned out that this wasn’t their last comic book adaptation as they decided to make Speed Racer their next project. Although the original was a popular manga in Japan, it became big in the US as well when it broadcasted as a cartoon during the sixties. For the movie adaptation they received a budget of 120 million and they have managed to create a unique movie. Continue reading