I have less and less time for fairly lengthy pieces like these. Considering I was on vacation I decided to take a crack at this one when it was offered to me. After all, you just have to find time every now and then for writing a piece that has the potential to be read by thousands. Sadly, the reviews on my blog don't count in that regard, as they're lucky to be read by more than three people (my mom doesn't even check them out, for heaven's sake!). Of course, recently I started aiming at writing reviews that I can post on IMDb in abbreviated form, but still, the use of taking the time and effort for such pieces is debatable considering my otherwise fairly busy existence. It kinda sucks for my blog, but it just doesn't have that much priority.
I had a blast watching this fourth season of the magnificent and hugely underrated HBO show Boardwalk Empire. Top-notch quality television like the previous seasons, despite a somewhat slow start (which is not unusual for HBO series). The only true downside of the thing is I received the DVD version rather than the requested Blu-Ray set, which means a breach in viewing style compared to the previous three seasons, which do grace my BD collection. Lesser video quality and a lower number of special features (saves time!) didn't hinder my appreciation of the show's fourth and penultimate season, as you'll find checking out the deservedly high rating I bestowed upon it. That said, I still have a tough time reviewing entire seasons of TV shows, considering there is so much to say about them. The piece already ended up longer than most similar reviews by the hand of my peers, but there's still plenty of material left unaddressed. I didn't even mention Michael Shannon's fabulous performance as former Prohee Nelson Van Alden in this run, which so poignantly mixes dark humour with social drama, as we follow the man's descent into a life of true crime which paradoxically finally makes him a likeable person. The show's tendency for wonderful team-ups of characters you would never see coming is also left largely unexplored, even though it formed one of the most enjoyable experiences this season. Reviewing seasons of television shows in an adequately limited number of words remains quite a challenge for me. I'm sure many readers won't be bothered by the frustrating results as much as I am myself though. Certainly not the small numbers who read it here.
Looks good. Looks positively final too. A sense of foreboding and imminent closure is clearly instilled with all the little hints at the show's ending found here. 'All Empires Fall', not very subtle, but it can't hurt to let the viewer know this grand show will soon come to an end. And am I gonna miss it. Boardwalk Empire is definitely on my Top-3 of currently running shows. Spectacular production values, compelling writing, intriguing mix of fiction and history and some of the loveliest acting you'll find on telly these days: what's not to like here? But as always, all good things must come to an end. Besides, I haven't even seen season 4 yet, so the finale is not so close for me as for most others. It's a nice thing the teaser makes it clear some of my favorite characters are still alive - some of them just had to be, according to the history books - but I can take a spoiler or two, as they are unavoidable when you're in a line of (unpaid) work that includes posting movie news. Nevertheless, as has become obvious throughout previous seasons (or indeed, most HBO shows for that matter), death still ever lurks around the corner for the characters we've come to appreciate. So we better enjoy seeing these folks interact with each other on screen for a final season, while we still can. For even if they do survive all the way up to the end, we won't be seeing them again anyhow.
There's no denying Sir Ridley Scott is the closest thing we have today to the Cecil B. DeMilles and David Leans of yesteryear. While most of his contemporary colleagues opt to film against mostly blue-screen backdrops on this type of epic film, Scott prefers to deal with the real thing as much as the budget allows. And thanks to his long list of past successes, his budgets tend to be fairly large. Hence his opportunity to shoot scenes on sets like the one above, which can best be described as 'lavish'. Which is not to say Scott has difficulty employing the use of digital trickery when tangible means fall short. There's still a Red Sea to part the blue way (or green, it's all the same). The appeal of lush visual effects, spectacular set construction and grandiose costume design aside, will this new retelling of the familiar Exodus story offer anything of novelty? Maybe Scott took a note from Darren Aronofsky's Noah, which told the Biblical tale in a more streamlined form (also to accommodate viewers of other persuasions, it cannot be denied). However, Scott is a much more straightforward director with a tendency to prefer the classical approach of storytelling. I very much doubt his take on Exodus will deviate much from previous incarnations, surely not as much as Noah dared to be different. Which may be for the better, considering the fairly uncomfortable, haphazard results that spawned (also thanks to studio interference).
And there's more ancient Egypt to go around in Hollywood these days. Which will not surprise audiences who knew better than to walk away before the end credits of X-Men: Days of Future Past had rolled completely. As Bryan Singer's tease of the treatment shows here, X-Men: Apocalypse will open more or less on the same note its predecessor left us, namely the backstory of the age old mutant En Sabah Nur, who will grow over the centuries to become the new X-nemesis Apocalypse. Spectators familiar with the comics won't be surprised by this particular bit of background story for the mutant megalomaniac, as it is integral to the formation of this big Marvel baddie and his 'not all mutants were created equal' philosophy. The scene also serves to flesh out his prime henchmen, the Four Horsemen, which may be of major importance to the various X-Men we're familiar with, as some of them will undoubtedly be chosen to represent Apocalypse - whether they want to or not - in the movie's present day and age. Or is Singer going to be very brave and ignore the events of Days of Future Past by diving directly in the alternate reality popularly known as the Age of Apocalypse? I would applaud that decision, but I'm sure it won't come that far, as the studio will be convinced it will needlessly confuse the general audience, which might have some difficulty accepting the notion of alternate universes which in the comics has become a routine ingredient of the X-franchise. It would also detract from the cinematic universe studio Fox is currently hoping to built (though Days of Future Past showed disappointingly little evidence of that, hinting at the studio's insecurity as to how to proceed on that front) if things were to be mixed up too much at this point. Lastly, Days of Future Past's overly cheerful ending, where a dark finale heralding the rise of Apocalypse seemed to have made so much more sense than the happy-happy joy-joy climax we were served instead, goes to show Singer too isn't so brave as to stir things up that aggressively. I don't expect to be surprised by X-Men: Apocalypse too much from a narrative perspective, as I'm not at all surprised by the hints dropped through this Instagram tease.
Outrageously
zany, off-beat comedy the likes only the Coen Brothers can provide.
Life is tough for the pot smoking all-round slacker Jeffrey Lebowski,
more commonly referred to as “The Dude” (Jeff Bridges in one of
the most defining roles of his career). Sharing his last name with a
millionaire, he's victimized by thugs who mistake him for that rich man (who
owes them a debt), a situation which finds his beloved rug in ruin
after having been urinated upon by the perpetrators. When he visits his namesake to try
and get him to pay for its cleaning, he soon gets more than he
bargained for as he finds himself caught up in what appears to be a
kidnap of the wealthy man's trophy wife, but swiftly explodes into a
bizarre, inexplicable potpourri of events beyond anybody's control or
understanding, thanks to the involvement of a host of wacky, maniacal
and thoroughly enjoyable characters, ranging from feminist/nihilist
artists and pornographers to White Russians and generally random folk
annex narrators. Yet all The Dude asked for was a clean rug and an
opportunity to win the local bowling alley's competition he trained
so hard for with his two best buddies (John Goodman with severe anger
management problems and Steve Buscemi who can't take a hint when he's
asked to shut up). The Coens don't ask you to make sense of it all,
they just want you to roll with it (pun intended), as The Dude does himself.
Nevertheless, despite this absence of a clearly defined plot, or more
likely because of it, The Big Lebowski proves all kinds of
fun. The pair of directors used the same tactic a decade later with
Burn After Reading to similar results, proving them the
masters of this subgenre of 'nonsensicomedy' (for the record, I just
made that term up and I hope it catches on). In both cases they were
aided by an impressive cast of character actors and/or movie stars
who felt like doing something different for a change, in The Big
Lebowski's case including Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro,
Julianne Moore and Sam Elliott. Though the film was met with
moderately tempered critical reviews and disappointing box office
results back in 1998, time has proven the Coens right, as it has
since become a widely accepted cult classic with serious tendencies
towards an eventual, seemingly unavoidable shedding of the moniker
'cult'. When Burn After Reading came along in 2008, the
majority of both audience and critics finally understood this type of
film, and that movie did much, much better business accordingly.
Starring:
Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi
Overly
noisy and bombastic action spectacle featuring the imminent demise of
our planet by a giant asteroid, so an unlikely group of oil drillers
is send into space to drill a hole in this threat and plant a nuclear
bomb into it so it can be blown up in space before it kills us all.
Though the movie features a deliciously good cast and plenty of
action, its at times completely asinine plot, cheesy jokes, focus on
loud explosions and abundance of annoying moments of blatant American
patriottism clearly betray this film to be yet another obnoxious
Michael Bay product, dragging on for 150 minutes from one silly
catastrophe to another until we simply cannot care about the
characters' plight any more. Too bad, since the film starts out
pretty good with a convincing and spectacular action scene of small
meteorites hitting landmarks around the globe. After that, the movie
only goes progressively downhill, despite the solid score and the
many fine actors involved.
Starring:
Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Steve Buscemi
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