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7 articles from 2009
Avatar: Crazy, Ridiculous, and Irresistible
22 December 2009 12:03 AM, PST
| Huffington Post
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"I'd say that you were the perfect combination of imperfections. I'd say that your nose was just a little too short, your mouth just a little too wide. But yours was a face that a man could see in his dreams for the whole of his life."
-- Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), in Kind Hearts and Coronets
James Cameron's Avatar isn't a great movie. The script (which Cameron wrote) is filled with thudding one-liners, a predictable romance, and a silly plot ripped from the pages of Ferngully; the score, by longtime Cameron collaborator James Horner, is similarly unmemorable. Yet its images are so arresting, so transcendent, that it stays with the viewer far longer than many better-made movies. And even the ham-fistedness of the message is part of its charm: few writer-directors other than Peter Jackson get the chance to make a
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- Alex Remington
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Payback is making a comeback
20 November 2009 4:15 PM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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Why does recession bring with it a thirst for dumb revenge dramas?
Law Abiding Citizen, which I should say at the outset is a terrible, terrible movie – either the stupidest of the year so far or the most unintentionally funny – takes the urban revenge movie and grafts on to it certain depressing innovations from other genres, including the serial killer-as-genius trope from The Silence Of The Lambs, and the post-Saw/Hostel enthusiasm for torture-porn and mega bloodshed. Let's just say it doesn't tell us much except that the revenge movie is back with, um, a vengeance.
Gerard Butler plays a man who takes complicated, detailed and violent revenge against the killers who raped and murdered his wife and daughter. Thing is, he's already in jail when most of the killings occur (cue evil genius!), which doesn't stop one victim from being surgically deprived of various extremities, up to and including his Johnson (hello,
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- John Patterson
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Kind Hearts and Coronets: from 'antisemitic' novel to classic film
12 November 2009 5:52 AM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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The 60th anniversary of Robert Hamer's Ealing classic Kind Hearts and Coronets is the perfect time to get acquainted with the witty, provocative book on which it is based
This week, I spoke at the Film Nite discussion group in London on the 60th anniversary of Robert Hamer's Ealing classic Kind Hearts and Coronets. It was a chance to revisit that old chestnut: is it true that you can only make great films from terrible books, and that conversely, great books always get turned into terrible films?
Kind Hearts and Coronets is the elegant black comedy about a suburban draper's assistant, Louis Mazzini, played by Dennis Price, who by a quirk of fate is distantly in line to a dukedom and sets out to murder every single nobleman and noblewoman ahead of him in the succession so that he can get his hands on the ermine. All the
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- Peter Bradshaw
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Review: Kind Hearts and Coronets - one of the greatest films in history?
2 November 2009 4:50 AM, PST
| t5m.com
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A 1949 English black comedy film directed by Robert Hamer tell a story of Louise Mazzini (Dennis Price), a son of a woman ostracised by her family due to her marriage with a poor Italian opera singer, who takes a revenge on the D'Ascoynes family after they refuse her burial in the family crypt. By killing heirs of the family one by one, Louise succeeds in becoming the tenth Duke of Chalfont. His happinness, however, does not last long as he is torn between two women: one that wishes to marry and another who knows of his murders and threatens to reveal the truths if he does not marry her.
Although the basic plot of the film itself is a heavy matter to deal with, Kind Hearts and Coronets portrays it rather lightly with comical murder scenes and humour. Instead of making the audience's jaw drop shocked by the cold-blooded murder scenes,
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- Uprising
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How Does Jim Carrey Playing Multiple Roles in 'A Christmas Carol' Benefit the Film?
26 October 2009 1:22 PM, PDT
| Rope of Silicon
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The idea of one actor playing multiple characters in a film isn't a new one even though many people begin and end the conversation with Eddie Murphy for his performances in films such as Nutty Professor and Norbit all while forgetting the comedy he brought us in Coming to America.
Before Murphy we had the likes of Mel Brooks in History of the World and Spaceballs, Alec Guiness in the fantastic Kind Hearts and Coronets and Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove. Outside of Murphy it seems only Mike Myers has endured the same kind of ill treatment, primarily for taking the joke to the point it wasn't funny any longer (debatable) in the Austin Powers films and then dropping the bomb that was The Love Guru.
Looking at the performances listed above I am reminded of some classic films as well as a couple that missed the mark, but we
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- Brad Brevet
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Five Villains Who've Worn Out Their Welcome
20 October 2009 7:02 PM, PDT
| Cinematical
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A good villain is memorable, and impressive, and scary as hell. But bring back the same villain over and over, give him lousy dialogue and have him repeatedly defeated by worthless opponents, and that villain becomes nothing more than an ineffectual bully who doesn't know when to give up. He's like that big, hairy guy down the street who scared the crap out of you when you were a kid, but who now has a pot belly, three obnoxious kids, and a Trans Am on blocks in his front yard. It makes it hard to remember why you ever found him frightening in the first place -- you'd feel sorry for him, but you just don't care enough to bother. Like these five:
Dr. Evil
Remember how cool Dr. Evil was in the first Austin Powers movie? Very few villains have fallen as far or as fast as Mike Myers' homage to Bondian baddies.
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- Dawn Taylor
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Simon Pegg and David Tennant to Snatch Bodies in Burke and Hare?
11 October 2009 2:22 PM, PDT
| HeyUGuys.co.uk
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While his brutal love letter to the English folk tale An American Werewolf in London nears its 30th anniversary John Landis is preparing a similarly gruesome tale to tell, and tonight we’ve learned from Bloody Disgusting that outgoing Doctor Who David Tennant is joining Hollywood’s favourite Brit Simon Pegg in Burke and Hare.
Telling the nefarious narrative of the eponymous duo sounds right up Landis’ dark alley. Taking advantage of the booming anatomy business the pair conspired and murdered seventeen people and kept the medical colleges of Edinburgh stocked with fresh corpses. It should come as no surprise to be told that this will be the darkest of black comedies.
If this isn’t enough to raise a grim smile then the fact that this film will be produced by the historic Ealing studios, home to The Ladykillers, Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Man in the White Suit.
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- Jon Lyus
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7 articles from 2009
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