1982 In Review - July
#1
To save her ill son, a field mouse must seek the aid of a colony of rats, with whom she has a deeper link than she suspected.
In the 1970s, Disney's animation department was deteriorating in terms of quality, down to the point where animator/director Don Bluth and a team of his own quit the studio in 1979 to compete with them and make their own features. After finishing their first attempted short film,…
Empire’s Best Movies of 2021
4. Nomadland
A woman in her sixties, after losing everything in the Great Recession, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.
A moving tone poem about loss and what it’s like to be homeless in mid west America. It didn’t quite work for me as a whole, but I could totally understand and respect it. Frances McDormand is always wonderful in everything she does.Â
What I did like…
1972 In Review - June
#16
In a futuristic world that has embraced ape slavery, Caesar, the son of the late simians Cornelius and Zira, surfaces after almost twenty years of hiding out from the authorities, and prepares for a slave revolt against humanity.
Taking place some 18 years after the last Apes film was set, this fourth chapter in the series starts to take a downward turn.
In the near-future (from where we left off), Simian Kind has been…
1972 In Review - June
#15
Bill McKay (Robert Redford) is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.
The Candidate is a very insightful, very conscientious, and very accurate film in exploring the trials, tribulations, and developments in transforming a nihilistic underdog into a popular, contending candidate for the California Senate. It is a good, provocative, and even satiric look at the ups and downs…
1972 In Review - June
#14
Two martial arts schools prepare for an important tournament.
Five Fingers of Death is an excellent and classic kung fu action flick. It was also apparently the very first king fu film to be released in the West.Â
The story of Five Fingers of death is simple, the skeleton of the story is that the main character needs to win a public kung fu tournament with high stakes. The flesh of the story consists…
1972 In Review - June
#13
A vicious Kansas City slaughterhouse owner (Gene Hackman) and his hick family are having a bloody "beef" with the Chicago crime syndicate over profits from their joint illegal operations. Top enforcer Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin) is sent to straighten things out.
Prime Cut stars two of my favourite movie stars, Gene Hackman and Lee Marvin. Although to be fair it’s more Lee Marvin’s movie, he is in almost every scene whereas Hackman is only…
1972 In Review - June
#12
A serial murderer is strangling women with a necktie. The London police have a suspect, but he is the wrong man.
Frenzy is the most vicious of all Hitchcock's films. More violent than Psycho and The Birds, and with more detailed scenes of murder than Torn Curtain, it is almost jarring to find the master of suspense resorting to such sadistic detail. However, he just about gets away with it, because the film is…
2009 In Review - September
#1
A rag doll that awakens in a postapocalyptic future holds the key to humanity's salvation.
9 is the kind of animation film that makes you realise just how great Pixar are, where the story and characters are king.  Nothing is more  important than the story. With 9 we get the opposite, it’s all about the style.Â
The plot was extremely confusing and disjointed. I had no idea what was going on, let alone what…
1982 In Review - June
#16
The Monty Python troupe perform a combination of classic sketches and new material at the Hollywood Bowl.
This is a very short but sweet live concert of Monty Python doing a lot of their favourite sketches. For fans of the TV show this will be great. They redo a lot of their more famous bits from the show. Obviously the audience was full of fans judging from the thunderous applause that greeted the mare…
1982 in Review - June
#15
Danny is a New York City subway graffiti artist whose prodigious talent is noticed by a concerned cop who becomes a mentor and urges him to help track down a drug kingpin.
Dreams Don’t Die was another one of those TV movies that were actually quite decent, nothing spectacular, but surprisingly good and better then some offerings at the cinema. It’s about Danny, who is a talented graffiti artist who longs for more. Paul…
1972 In Review - June
#11
Shaft is back to find the murderer of an old friend on the cold hard city streets with a little help from his new friends.
Due to the success of the original Shaft, a much bigger budget was thrown at this sequel, giving us helicopters, speedboats, elaborate car chases but unfortunately that also means the story is a lot more slower paced and slightly bloated. The character of Shaft here isn’t as good as…
1982 In Review - June
#14
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
Simply put, The Thing is my favourite movie of all time, I think it was one of the very first VHS movies that I watched that left a lasting impression on me. Released on the very same day as the classic Blade Runner, The Thing was also derided by the critics. I recently watched a review…