The fault lies not in the stars... [pullquote cite="" type="left, right"][amazon text=Amazon&template=carousel&chan=that film guy&asin=B00EXPOCNO][/pullquote] I'm going to throw some words at you. Staggering, epic, intelligent, glorious, beautiful, wondrous, cerebral, fantastic, lazy, self-indulgent, pretentious, long and nonsensical. This are just a few words that … [Read more...]
Review: Leviathan (2014, Russian)
Job and the Whale [pullquote cite="" type="left, right"][amazon text=Amazon&template=carousel&chan=that film guy&asin=B00OUVCQBQ][/pullquote] If someone were to tell you a film was a ˜Russian Epic' you might be forgiven for thinking bleak landscapes, social oppression, cold winters and big servings of vodka. In many ways that's exactly what you get in Leviathan, … [Read more...]
Review: Noah (2014)
[pullquote cite="" type="left, right"][amazon text=Amazon&template=carousel&chan=that film guy&asin=B00IZEATRM][/pullquote] Courting controversy has never bothered director Darren Aronofsky before and in his Biblical epic Noah, he once again stares down a weighty subject matter with his own keen eye for storytelling. Beset with studio interference, reshoots and … [Read more...]
Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
The second film in trilogies are always difficult to handle. The setup is done in the first film, while the conclusion is handled in the third, so the second film has to get stuck in straight away and normally end with a cliff-hanger ending, while still trying to have its own 3 act structure to avoid pacing issues. The Empire Strikes Back is the high benchmark of middle films, … [Read more...]
Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
9 years after the release of the Oscar winning conclusion to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, director Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth in the first part of a new trilogy that adapts JRR Tolkien's first novel in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. On the day of Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) 111th birthday, he is caught by his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood) … [Read more...]
Life of Pi (2012) review by That Film Guy
Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Yann Martel, Life of Pi was initially courted by M. Night Shyamalan, Alfonso Cuaron and Jean-Pierre Jeunet before Ang Lee took on the task of filming a seemingly unfilmable book. A Canadian author (Rafe Spall) is sent in search of a mysterious Indian-born Canadian called Pi (Irrfan Khan) because he's told that he has a story … [Read more...]
Conan the Barbarian (1982) review by That Film Dude
Let me tell you of the days of high adventure! Made at the height of the '80s fantasy boom, Conan the Barbarian remains pretty much the best film the genre has to offer that isn't The Lord of the Rings. While Arnold Schwarzenegger had been in films prior to Conan, it was this film which put him on the map as a major star; his acting is rubbish, but he was still pretty much … [Read more...]
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Taiwan) review by That Film Dude
Martial arts films had been big business in China for decades, but they never really caught on in a big way overseas until relatively recently. The Matrix drew a great deal of influence from the style of Hong Kong action cinema, and proved fairly conclusively that there was a market for these sorts of films in English speaking countries; and so a new wave of martial arts epics … [Read more...]
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) review by The Filmologist
The inexorable grating of world weary cynicism and the ponderous march of logical progress can erode even the most active imagination. Where once flights of fantasy were; now are empirical marvels, as concept cars and far off nebulas replace myth, fable and Max's Midnight Kitchen as objects of awe and wonderment. With reality granting us this tainted escapism grounded in an oft … [Read more...]
The Lord of the Rings (1978) review by That Film Guy
Before Peter Jackson took on the task of adapting JRR Tolkien's epic trilogy of books The Lord of the Rings, an animated film was released in 1978. Combining the content of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers into one film, Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings proved a commercial success at the box office taking $30m from a budget of $4m. Despite this success the … [Read more...]