Letterboxd — Your life in film

I have a rule with films like Drive, and that is that I'm not going to watch them until a few years after they were released. By "films like Drive" I mean films that attain that almost phenomenal word-of-mouth rush of publicity that then go on to plop on to most critics' top 10 of the year lists, but have some very vocal naysayers. You know the films I mean.

The point of this is that the massive groundswell of…

"Just because an idea is overly convoluted and complex doesn't make it cool. Going to multiple dream levels sounds like a really stupid idea."

I've noticed a distinct advantage in being something of an 'after the Lord Mayor's show' viewer of recent heavily hyped, acclaimed and analysed films. Much of the most complex and detailed analysis and theorising has already been done by people who actually know what the hell they are talking about, and therefore I can just come…

Pulp Fiction takes Quentin Tarantino to two out of two when it comes to rewatches of his films that don't quite stand up to previous viewings. But what a film this still is.

My issue with Reservoir Dogs was to do with clunky dialogue and I have to say that it's the same problem I have with this film. Tarantino's interest in the minutiae of pop culture and junk food seemed rather forced this time round and although filled with…

Are we allowed to talk about this yet or what?

So, I don't like Joss Whedon's stuff. This is for reasons that are many and varied and almost certainly far too boring for me to get into here. But having seen the brouhaha that this film created on its release, and the hush-hush reviews that almost everyone seemed to agree on, I was obviously going to give the guy another shot and see what the hell all the fuss was…

Cinebro Caused My Divorce - The June 100 Challenge (5/100)

Many, many films have played hard and fast with history over the decades, especially those that have dealt with World War 2. Many of those have even chosen to stir fictional incidents and characters in with fact.

I can only presume, then, that the problem that some people seemed to have with Quentin Tarantino's decision to make a war film that chose to play completely by its own rules and…

Film 17 of Steve Grzesiak's Worldwide Month of Scary Bastard Films - Cheating Edition

There was only really one film that I could end with, wasn't there? I actually had an extra incentive to watch it as well after claiming the other day in my Prince Of Darkness review that John Carpenter's film could now be my favourite horror film of all time. I have reviewed it before but then again, I'd reviewed Prince Of Darkness before, so why the…

I think that The Shining is, outside of one of its major plot points, a pretty good name for this film. It's a shining example of why no filmmaker should feel obliged to as closely mirror a book as possible when doing an adaptation.

When Stanley Kubrick released The Shining, Stephen King famously decried it, saying that it hardly resembled his novel at all. Quite often since then people have suggested that King simply does not understand cinema, an opinion…

There are several directors that are generally thought of as being excellent in most quarters that I haven't really got round to addressing since I came on Letterboxd - Kubrick, Tarantino, Scorsese to name but three. Oh, and David Fincher.

It's actually not been a deliberate thing and certainly not because I dislike their work. On the contrary, I am a fan of all them and I'm looking forward shortly to catching up on post-Jackie Brown Tarantino especially. But it's…

I like Quentin Tarantino's films.

I've not seen all of them yet but I've seen a few. Reservoir Dogs was one that I first saw back in 1993. It was a pirate of a laserdisc version that was doing the rounds at school at the time and having heard a lot about this allegedly amazing film, I gave it a shot.

This was at about the time when I had just started to immerse myself in films in a big…

Somebody's going to have to do me a favour here.

I know it might be difficult and that because you only know me through Letterboxd (and possibly Twitter and maybe a wrestling forum) but just do your best. The next time you see or sense me being curious about a film that I know I am going to absolutely hate, then please stop me. By any means necessary.

As I remarked to Ahab on a list earlier today, at one…

Now that I'm a proper adult and stuff with a job(s) and kids and I have to cook my own food and that kind of thing, I do find myself watching films that are more or less aimed at a younger audience and wondering how I would have thought of them if I had been the age of my eldest daughter, who is 5.

Jurassic Park came along when I was 16 or 17, so probably a bit too late…