Category Archives: Fantasy

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Arrietty (2010)

Studio Ghibli can turn normal situations into something special. In My Neighbour Totoro it made you believe that friendly monsters lived in trees, and in other movies that you can end up in unseen, hidden worlds (The Cat Returns or Spirited Away) and with Arrietty they try to convince us that small people live underneath our houses. They live on the things they borrow from us, which would be a perfect explanation why I have so many single socks, I guess they must be using them as sleeping bags or something. Continue reading →

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Mars Needs Moms (2011)

With a budget of 150 million dollar, Mars Needs Moms isn’t a cheap movie. It has been produced by Robert Zemeckis’ Imagemovers, who was also responsible for The Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol. Mars Needs Moms was a big flop and it didn’t manage to recoup its costs. Is Mars Needs Moms really such a bad movie or did it just need a good marketing push? Continue reading →

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Speed Racer (2008)

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 →

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The Thing (1982)

Antarctica, a cold and desolate place, which is only visited by researchers and the occasional tourist. In other words a perfect setting for a science fiction/horror movie as there isn’t any place you can hide, except for the camp you are living in. You also know that you will have to solve all your issues yourself as there is nobody coming soon to rescue you. Add to that, that you actually don’t know if the people around you are still human and you have the perfect ingredients for a tense situation where you don’t know who you can trust. Continue reading →

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Micmacs (2009)

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has proved with Amélie (which currently is part of the IMBD top 250) that he’s able to create a dreamy, almost fairy tale like world with special characters. As a viewer you can’t help to be mesmerised with the way it makes you feel. It truly is a feel good movie (which I have recently watched again after watching this). Although different, Jeunet tries again to create such a world. Does he succeed? Continue reading →

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The Great Yokai War (2005)

Takashi Miike is known as a controversial filmmaker with his extremely violent movies, like Ichi the Killer. It’s not a movie I have seen myself as I don’t enjoy watching shocking things just to shock. So it was a conscious decision not to see it. The Great Yokai War is also made by him and is supposed to be a movie for kids. Did he manage to succeed? Continue reading →

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Gulliver’s Travels (2010)

Gulliver’s Travels (which was written in 1726) has been adapted for film many times. A quick look at Wikipedia shows this is the 17th film about the story, so there’s a very big chance that you already saw a version of this story about a man who ends up on the island of Lilliput inhabited by tiny people who are in a state of war with a rival island. Does Jack Black manage to give a fresh twist to this story with his humour? Continue reading →

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The Abyss (1989)

The Abyss is a movie which I had not seen before. It tells the story of a diving team that are asked to find a lost nuclear submarine, but find something else they were not expecting. It’s the first of Cameron’s films where he used extensive CGI to tell his story. When you look at the scene in Terminator 2 where the T-1000 goes through the glass of the helicopter you see that this movie allowed it. Cameron’s use of CGI has only increased over the year resulting in the almost complete CGI movie Avatar. Continue reading →

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Guest review – Let The Right One In (2008)

This weekend I asked on Twitter if anyone was interested in doing a guest review on this blog. Liam Underwood was soon to respond and has selected Låt den rätte komma in (Let The Right One In). If you are also interested in a review you wrote appearing hit the Contact link at the top. I want to thank Liam for writing this excellent review, makes me want to see this film as soon as I can.

Vampires have an extremely sexualized romantic history on-screen, and they are currently experiencing somewhat of a resurgence. Despite their ugly origins with ‘Nosferatu (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens) (Murnau, 1922)’ – a bald-headed creature with bat-like features – the screen vampire is often depicted as dashing charming creatures of the night with a certain allure to them.
From Bela Lugosi in ‘Dracula (Browning, 1931)’ to the iconic imposing Christopher Lee in Hammer’s ‘Dracula (Fisher, 1958)’ offering, the Count is perhaps the most famous screen vampire. The 80s saw vampires as sexed up party animals with ‘The Lost Boys (Schumacher, 1987)’ and the criminally overlooked ‘Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987)’ – this portrayal still glamourised the vampire lifestyle. Most recently, vampires have become heart-throb sparkly sex symbols, thanks to their idolised depiction in ‘Twilight (Hardwicke, 2008)’. But vampires are rarely grounded in reality, either situated in a gothic or fantastical context. Until now. Continue reading →

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The Cat Returns (2002)

Those who regularly read my blog know that I’m a big Studio Ghibli fan. With much more detail and deeper stories than your average Disney movie, they are in my opinion the best in the business. The Cat Returns has also been made by studio Ghibli. Haru is a schoolgirl who saves a cat from being run over by a car on her way home. She doesn’t think much of it, but during the night she gets a strange visitor, the king of the cats. The cat she saved turns out to be the prince’s son and the king wants to reward her for her deed. Continue reading →