A fine and merry day to you all.
The formula you know: 7 days, 2 films (usually)
The name: FFFD
Sit students, and we shall begin our inward journey.
Black Dynamite (2009)
This is a funny film.
A very funny film.
Possibly one of the funniest films I've ever seen.
This 2009 film is worryingly convincing as a low-fi, roughly made, poorly acted Blaxploitation film (a genre that grew in popularity in the 1970s USA, Shaft being one of the more well known results).
Starring Michael Jai White (Universal Soldier, Spawn) as the eponymous superman Black Dynamite, this film tells the tale of corruption, drugs and crime and Dynamite's quest to rid his streets of drugs and crime, from the lowliest gangster, right up to the White House (The Honky House, complete with nunchaka wielding Richard Nixon).
White has pretty good comic timing and a lot of the humour is resting on his chisled shoulders, but the film overall is perfect in its tone. Seemingly very fond of the films it is based on whilst simultaneously being aware of the low production values and bad actors (intentional in this case) are a source of great amusement. So you have booms lowered into shot, forgotten lines, recycled effects, cameras unable to zoom or focus in correctly. I doubt I've laughed as hard as much at a film for a long, long time.
Another pleasant surprise of the film is that it doesn't drag on, or have long patches of weaker material between the funny bits. A sudden plot change 80% of the way through the film seems gratuitous but why shouldn't it be. Almost everything else in the film is over the top in much the same way.
The action scenes are also a nice addition. Jai White, being a very good martial artist himself creates the most professional looking scenes in the film when he's punching, kicking, nunchaka-ing people in the face.
It is still (at the time of writing) a little known film, something that I have been trying very hard to change one viewer at a time. I do urge you to watch this, you won't regret it.
Trailer:
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)
We move now from a superfly, kung fu machine to a baby faced Belgian reporter.
This is one INCREDIBLE looking film. I'm sure you may have read that somewhere before my previous sentence, so had I and I was still amazed by it. The animation, facial expressions, eyes, eyebrows, Snowy, all of them look as real as animation could get, fantastic stuff. Several scenes are crammed with so much beauty on the screen that it really is awesome.
Watching this film reminded me of the book and the animated show. In my eyes that makes the film a success, the characters of Tintin (and Snowy), Captain Haddock, Thomson and Thompson are almost identical to my memories from childhood, a joy to watch. Several people have commented on the accents not being European but when I imagined the characters talking whilst reading the stories, they were talking in English accents.
Speaking of voice actors, every cast member (Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Andy Serkis) is on form, delivering joy and menace appropriately. Jamie Bell in particular gives his Tintin the sense of youthful adventure that I imagined he would do.
The story is a combination of several of the Tintin books and whilst the pacing is uneven at times, the story is a nice mix of adventure and danger. The first third of the film is fantastic, the initial set-up, introduction to characters and the plot as a whole are very well done, add to this a fantastic opening title sequence (think Catch Me If You Can) and it draws you right in. Whilst the rest of the film doesn't live up to these inspired first minutes, it certainly holds its own and has that kind of Spielberg magic where it just has a slightly magical feel to it.
A film I really quite enjoyed. That's two for two this week.
Trailer:
Preview: Total Recall (2012)
>/No mention of Mars?
>/It seems like Total Recall via the style of Minority Report.
>/Directed by Len Wiseman and also starring Kate Beckinsale (sigh!) with Colin Farrell.
>/It looks like a lot of effort was put into set design/CGI/soldiers suits.
>/Verdict?
....Not off to a good start, I'll keep an eye on further trailers but so far, not hugely impressed.
It has been established until this item have not revealed http://tbwconline.com - best wrinkle cream failure comes from Significant Natural Skin Care. best wrinkle cream The reports discover that you've got a 14Per cent improvement http://tbwconline.com will never injury your epidermis.
Posted by: Unatonella | 08/04/2013 at 12:14 PM