Sunday 29 April 2012

The Avengers (I refuse to call it Avengers Assemble).


It’s a good thing that the film itself is much better than the film’s title because Marvel’s Avengers Assemble is a bad name, but there is a reason for this name change. The fear which British distributors held is that they believed some people would think that a film called The Avengers will be a remake of the 1970s TV show also called The Avengers and then turn up to find that the film they actually are going to see has very little in common with the film they thought they were going to see. Anyway Marvel Avengers Assemble could be called anything and still make several £100,000,000.

Thursday 19 April 2012

Into the Abyss, The Texas Killing Fields and The Rum Diary


Of late Werner Herzog’s documentaries have been his best and more notable works, his most recent documentaries are fascinating and have provided great insight into subjects such as the life of a bear enthusiast, prehistoric caves and now the death penalty which Herzog’s most recent documentary focuses on. Using the case study of a triple homicide to debate the use of capital punishment Herzog tackles the issue with objectiveness and sensitivity, in the documentary interviews are conducted with a former executioner, the victims’ families and the murderers themselves who all provide a powerful account of the incident in their own unique way.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Dream House review



Occasionally a film with a troubled production history will have negative effects on the finished product, take Alien 3 for example in which director David Fincher relentlessly battled with producers over the handling of the film (naturally the director’s cut of the film is vastly superior) and even Blade Runner was affected by its troubled production resulting in the film being hit financially. Judging by director producer quarrels it appears that Dream House also fell victim to such production issues.