Film

An archive of blog entries about films and film production.

Film

Quarantine viral videos: Splash and Lord of the Rings’s cast and creators reunite on Reunited Apart

2 June 2020 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Remember Josh Gad’s Reunited Apart? It’s an online series that showcases charities working to provide resources during the lockdown. Hosted by Josh Gad, each episode reunites the cast and crew of classic movies.

The first of these were The Goonies (1985) and Back to the Future (1985), but he’s only gone and done another two!

Episode three reunites Splash (1984)’s director Ron Howard, producer/creator Brian Grazer, and stars Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah, as well as a few special guests (clue: Schitt’s Creek‘s Eugene Levy is one of them).

Episode four then ups the ante by going after the cast of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That features (for starters) Sean Astin, Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Orlando Bloom and Ian McKellan, as well as writer/director Peter Jackson. Sean Bean, Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, John Rhys-Davies and Andy Serkis later on.

And Taika Waititi. And some others. It’s a double-length episode. Are you surprised?

Film

The iPlayer adds 23 RKO classics

19 May 2020 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

In a rather nice move for those of us in need of a movie fix, the BBC has just added no fewer than 23 RKO classic movies to the iPlayer. In no particular order other than alphabetical, they are:

Here’s the full list:

  • Angel Face
  • Beautiful But Dangerous
  • Blackbeard, The Pirate
  • Bringing Up Baby
  • Carefree
  • Citizen Kane
  • Fort Apache (1948)
  • King Kong (1933)
  • Kitty Foyle
  • Love Affair (1939)
  • Magnificent Ambersons
  • Mr Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse
  • My Favourite Wife
  • She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
  • Suspicion
  • The Gay Divorcee
  • The Miracle of the Bells
  • The Sky’s the Limit
  • The Spanish Main
  • The Velvet Touch
  • Top Hat
  • Vivacious Lady
  • Wagon Master

Some obvious classic must-sees in there – Citizen Kane, Bringing Up Baby, King Kong, Fort Apache, Magnificent Ambersons, Top Hat – but there’s plenty in there I haven’t seen, so am happily assuming are equally great.

Film reviews

Question of the week: what’s your favourite Bond movie and why?

19 May 2020 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

This is a question I was mulling over the weekend. Most “what’s your favourite…?” Bond questions are inevitably about your favourite actor to play James Bond; the movie’s themselves seem to be after-thoughts, mere vehicles for the characters rather than movies in their own rights.

Which isn’t fair to the talented movie makers who made them. So let’s sort that out. Tell me your favourite Bond movie and why it’s your favourite. To help, here’s the list of all of them in (more or less) chronological order, followed by my choice of best Bond movie.

Canon

Sean Connery

  • Dr No (1962)
  • From Russia with Love (1963)
  • Goldfinger (1964)
  • Thunderball (1965)
  • You Only Live Twice (1967)
  • Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

George Lazenby

  • On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Roger Moore

  • Live and Let Die (1973)
  • The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
  • The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
  • Moonraker (1979)
  • For Your Eyes Only (1981)
  • Octopussy (1983)
  • A View to a Kill (1985)

Timothy Dalton

  • The Living Daylights (1987)
  • Licence to Kill (1989)

Pierce Brosnan

  • GoldenEye (1995)
  • Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
  • The World Is Not Enough (1999)
  • Die Another Day (2002)

Daniel Craig

  • Casino Royale (2006)
  • Quantum of Solace (2008)
  • Skyfall (2012)
  • Spectre (2015)

Not canon

  • Casino Royale (1967)
  • Never Say Never Again (1983)
Continue reading “Question of the week: what’s your favourite Bond movie and why?”
Film reviews

Covideodrome: Extraction (2020)

13 May 2020 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

A temporary replacement for TMINE’s Orange Thursday feature in which I review a readily available movie you’ve probably already seen

The second of TMINE’s new Covideodrome movie review feature – aka “We watching whatever’s available and we don’t have to pay for” – is Extraction (2020), Netflix’s latest big budget movie, which stars Chris Hemsworth. Here’s the plot:

A hardened mercenary’s mission becomes a soul-searching race to survive when he’s sent into Bangladesh to rescue a drug lord’s kidnapped son

Netflix

Adapted by Joe Russo from his and his brother’s (yes, those Russo Brothers) graphic novel of the same name and directed by their long-time stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave, it’s predicted to be Netflix’s biggest ever premiere, with 90 million households watching it. But should you?

Here’s a trailer to help you decide, with a review coming not long afterwards.

Continue reading “Covideodrome: Extraction (2020)”