2010 Films LIV-LIX
LIV: Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughan, 2010)
I seem to remember sorta liking Stardust, whilst feeling it lacked something, but this is a film to leave a big smile on your face. Mumblecore superheroics - comic geek, fed up of being mugged and bullied, invents a superheros, only to run across another superhero and his superhero daughter, and to face a gangster boss. The tens bring a convincing sense of realism to this, whilst Mark Strong is brilliant as the villain; the girl playing Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) is a show stealer and this is the first decent Nic Cage role since... Adaptation. or Face/Off. Violent and sweary, but go see
LV: The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976)
One of those films I've seen most of before, but maybe not all of it. Baby swap antichrist hokum, with Patrick Troughton playing an Irish priest and some cool deaths. As in the Final Destination films you wonder why whatever it is doesn't just kill people rather than reaching for the baroque.
LV: Damien: Omen II (Don Taylor, 1978)
Donner being busy with Superman, and Mike Hodges being fired after a few weeks, here Don Taylor takes up the reins and a slightly older antichrist going to school. More baroque deaths, and the desert opening I'd remembered for Omen being in this film.
LVI: Shivers (David Cronenberg, 1975)
Counterpoint to High-Rise, where a doctor isolates a kind of willpower-sapping slug, that spreads through intercourse and blood and makes its hosts want to have sex. An isolated Canadian society rapidly degenerates, less heternormatively than I recall. Still distirbing after all these years.
LVII: Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
Hitchcockian King adaptation, in which a telekinetic teen has her first period and is bullied by her peers and limited by her mother. Rather ambivalent film, flawed by its long, lingering shots of teens showering and displaying full frontal nudity.
LVIII: Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
I presume this is restored, and I haven't watched The Director's Cat (yet), but this is a good-looking film. Ten Little Indians in a haunted house, but well-drawn characters and twists a plenty. I'm not sure why the cat was there, and can't help but feel that if Ripley had been cast as a male actor he would not have stripped down to his pants.
Totals: 59 (Cinema: 16; DVDs: 34; TV: 9)
I seem to remember sorta liking Stardust, whilst feeling it lacked something, but this is a film to leave a big smile on your face. Mumblecore superheroics - comic geek, fed up of being mugged and bullied, invents a superheros, only to run across another superhero and his superhero daughter, and to face a gangster boss. The tens bring a convincing sense of realism to this, whilst Mark Strong is brilliant as the villain; the girl playing Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) is a show stealer and this is the first decent Nic Cage role since... Adaptation. or Face/Off. Violent and sweary, but go see
LV: The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976)
One of those films I've seen most of before, but maybe not all of it. Baby swap antichrist hokum, with Patrick Troughton playing an Irish priest and some cool deaths. As in the Final Destination films you wonder why whatever it is doesn't just kill people rather than reaching for the baroque.
LV: Damien: Omen II (Don Taylor, 1978)
Donner being busy with Superman, and Mike Hodges being fired after a few weeks, here Don Taylor takes up the reins and a slightly older antichrist going to school. More baroque deaths, and the desert opening I'd remembered for Omen being in this film.
LVI: Shivers (David Cronenberg, 1975)
Counterpoint to High-Rise, where a doctor isolates a kind of willpower-sapping slug, that spreads through intercourse and blood and makes its hosts want to have sex. An isolated Canadian society rapidly degenerates, less heternormatively than I recall. Still distirbing after all these years.
LVII: Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
Hitchcockian King adaptation, in which a telekinetic teen has her first period and is bullied by her peers and limited by her mother. Rather ambivalent film, flawed by its long, lingering shots of teens showering and displaying full frontal nudity.
LVIII: Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
I presume this is restored, and I haven't watched The Director's Cat (yet), but this is a good-looking film. Ten Little Indians in a haunted house, but well-drawn characters and twists a plenty. I'm not sure why the cat was there, and can't help but feel that if Ripley had been cast as a male actor he would not have stripped down to his pants.
Totals: 59 (Cinema: 16; DVDs: 34; TV: 9)