Letterboxd — Your life in film

I"m not going to lie, I've never exactly been a massive fan of Superman. I always found the character to be quite boring. There's very little that can actually harm him and he's a little too "All American", white bread and infallible. The Christopher Reeve movies never really wowed me as a kid and the less said about Superman Returns, the better. When I heard that the director of Dawn Of The Dead and Watchmen was directing the new Supes…

So... my previous criticisms still stand.
- The score is only exceptional when it's not trying desperately to be John Barry'esqe. I just hope we get David Arnold back for the 24th entry in the franchise. Either that or Thomas Newman pulls his socks up and stops with the Old School Bond Meets Hans Zimmer nonsense.
- The ending wraps things up way too nicely and far to quickly when you consider the time and effort it took to get…

Daryl’s “Oh shit I’m 30” Disney Project.
Film #18.

And from here we see the building blocks of the Mouse House's great revival. Leaping boldly from the darkness we have a simple adventure which dares to be funny and action packed. The songs are catchy, the animation is bright and vibrant, the pace... kinetic. All in all, a great mix for an accomplished Disney flick.

While Barrie Ingham's Basil and Val Bettin's Dawson are perfectly matched as the protagonists, it…

Visually stunning yet sparse and bleak, this tale of a silent warrior in a strange land is low on dialogue but high on atmosphere, tension and ultra-violence.

Mads Mikkelsen's One Eye (... don't be filthy) is a brooding and animalistic being. He manages to evoke a contemplative demeanour to his powder-keg physicality which needs few expressions and fewer words.

The cinematography is captivating and sure enough, if it wasn't for the photographic scenery and framing, there'd be little to hold…

Bold, obtuse, stark and barely tangible. Upstream Color makes Shane Curruth's debut Primer seem like a Michael Bay movie. But pull apart the navel gaze'y oddity of the piece and you're rewarded with a tale of connections within a greater organisms.

Carruth has a truly gifted eye. Shot on consumer grade cameras, the visuals are crisp, clear, precise and framed beautifully. His score is minimalist to a fault. Equally lovely and gruelling. My biggest concern with the director, writer, composer,…

A powerful drama about consequence, affection and isolation. The Reader manages to engage and provoke throughout and this is in no small part due to the superb screenplay by David Hare.
Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and David Kross' performances are magnificent and with a supporting cast which includes Bruno Ganz and Linda Bassett, there's not a weak link in the chain.

The difficulty here was to maintain a continuous resonance with the Michael Berg character which shifts between Fiennes and…

A very straight adaptation which ultimately creates a very tangible realisation of George Orwell's dystopian nightmare "future".
The film only struggles in it's slight deviations that unfortunately fail to fully realise the human condition and the intense actions/ reactions of Winston and Julia.

John Hurt is perfect as Winston Smith. The man is literally one of my favourite actors and around this time, some of his greatest performances were created. Kane in Aliens, Joseph Merrick in The Elephant Man, Max…

Daryl’s “Oh shit I’m 30” Disney Project.
Film #17.

If you can get over the fact that this isn't really a Disney movie, you're in for a dark, fantastical treat.

The animation is dull and faded. Some of the voice acting misses the mark and the movie is seriously scary for younger audiences but there's a canny charm to The Black Cauldron which kept me engaged throughout.

John Hurt is deliciously gravelly and sinister as The Horned King, while John…

"Too much of a good thing is wonderful".

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are outstanding and utterly convincing as a loving, bickering and deeply affectionate couple. The makeup, costumes and flamboyance are mere decoration to their beautifully portrayed relationship.

Elsewhere in the land of wigs and retro clothing we have Scott Bakula, Dan Aykroyd and Rob Lowe, each looking fabulous, with a tubby Paul Reiser appearing less so.

Marvin Hamlisch's final score is wonderful and perfectly marries to Steve Soderbergh's…

There's always something a little off when a British comedian tries to penetrate America. One only has to look at Rik Mayall in Drop Dead Fred and see that in spite of best efforts (and later... cult following), the magic formula is often incredibly elusive.
I'm not entirely sure how he's managed it, but in recent years we've seen Steve Coogan in the Night At The Museum movies, Tropic Thunder and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, to varying degrees…