The high-concept pitch for this is “Santa rescues a rich family from the clutches of armed criminals from the cut-and-weld version of Die Hard & Die Hard 2”. And if the recipient’s instant reaction wasn’t “KA-CHING£$!” they need to be fired. David Harbour is Santa McClane, and that covers half the bill by itself.
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When Zach Snyder debuted in the feature film world, it was with his 2004 remake of Dawn of The Dead. It was a smart, exciting, and overall interesting take on George A Romero’s classic zombie story; taking the basic set-up and social themes, then working in some new flourishes to keep the audience guessing. The movie had something to say, it knew how to do that in a visually and emotionally satisfying way, and whilst it played with themes of inertia and boredom it did so without frustrating the audience. It was an explosive, captivating film, from a director with everything to prove. Continue reading
This film is driven by the utterly devastating double act of Willem Dafoe as “X” and Christopher Walken as “Fox”, in what are their only co-starring roles on-screen (because otherwise, the world would collapse from the combined weight of their awesomeness). Both are involved in the seedy world of corporate espionage; Walken the work-orientated master and Dafoe the experienced but more money-focused journeyman. They have managed to get a job extracting Hiroshi, a highly valuable R&D scientist (played, mostly through video surveillance and sci-fi filters, by Yoshitaka Amano) from his current job to a new place of employment. To do this they have recruited Sandi (Asia Argento) to seduce him.
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There’s been a lot of hype going around Netflix’s latest action-adventure, The Last Days of American Crime; mostly that it’s a terrible movie and that Netflix should be ashamed of themselves for making it. But, having sat through its 148 minutes run time (138, if you discount the solid 10 minutes of credits), I believe that it’s not that bad a movie. It’s just a bit too long, a bit undercooked, and nihilistic in an unfashionable manner.
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Trash or Treasure 