Archive

Tag Archives: Cool Beans

Blazing Saddles

May 19, 2010
Film Reviews
Leave a comment

Blazing Saddles: (Blu Ray) A parody of almost every Western Movie you’ve ever seen, by comedic virtuoso Mel Brooks. ‘Saddles is one of the best examples of a film that provides constant comedy for the entire duration and never lets up, utilising slapstick and surreal, wit and wordplay, dumb laughs and even the first mainstream fart on the silver screen. You get the feeling that it was written by a bunch on friends just having a laugh and trying to get away with as much as possible. A lot of people look too hard into the racial aspect of the story, but who’s dumber at the end of the day: Sheriff Bart or the ‘Gov’ Le Petomane? Brooks stereotypes everyone here, nobody is safe – from the KKK to the Frontier folks. All of the central characters are memorable and well-acted; picking an outstanding individual is impossible. My only beef with Blazing Saddles is the end, which feels a little off, like the film lost its focus. Sure the characters talk to the camera throughout the film, but the whole cast ends up breaking out of their set and into various others at a film studio, then in to a cinema to watch the end of the film – it feels out of place and too self-referential / random. The Blu Ray disc is alright but the picture and audio still feel really vintage, wouldn’t recommend. All in, it’s a brilliant movie that’s 100% quotable and made so much better because no studio would be brave enough to re-make it in today’s P.C. age. To use a cliché, they genuinely don’t make ’em like this anymore.

Score: 8/10

Speed Racer

May 12, 2010
Film Reviews
6 Comments

Speed Racer: (Blu Ray) Follows the Racer family of car-enthusiasts as their son Speed takes on the biggest companies in the world. Off the bat this is blatantly aimed at kids but off the bat I didn’t really care much because this looks absolutely outstanding. The Wachowski‘s mash together so many elements for the visuals: the Jetsons space age, Metropolis, 1920s, Al Capone, Neo Tokyo, extreme sports, The Gumball Rally, Wipeout & Rollcage games, and the list just keeps going… pretty much all green-screen. The editing adds another layer on top, with some awesomely bamboozling wipes and cuts. The comic roots shine through as the overall visuals sit somewhere between classic manga and souped-up CGI. With all of this behind it, the visuals are almost too good as it ends up being a sustained assault on your eyes over the 2hr 10min runtime – especially during every race / ‘Car-Fu’ battle. Looks aside, the story & characters are terribly textbook and the absurd Kid & Monkey combo kept trying their hardest to make me hate the film, it started to work by the end. There’s some genuinely funny nubs of humour throughout like the R-R logo and Paul Frank ‘human’ shirt on the monkey. There’s also a nice James Bond assassination-attempt homage and couple of criminally underused actors – like Moritz Bleibtreu. The BD Picture’s is among the best I’ve seen so far – with everything from the huge city-scapes down to the roads rendered so sharply it feels like 3D in parts – the sound quality is less impressive but the mix still flies out all the speakers during the action scenes. Overall, despite the plain story and shallow characters I was absolutely mesmerised by the spectacular visuals. One of a kind.

Score: 5.5/10

Hot Rod

April 30, 2010
Film Reviews
2 Comments

Hot Rod: a wannabe stuntman has to pull off the biggest jump in history to save his terminally ill step-dad; just so he can kick his ass and win his respect before he dies… Ace! This is one of the few comedies I’ve seen lately that remains consistently funny throughout, with too many laughs to list, and a great script’s that throws up obvious and subtle jokes. Some of the humour’s pretty silly and offbeat but works because of the deadpan delivery. The cast are great with Samberg as the standout (unfortunately the Lonely Island are unheard of in the UK). Danny McBride and his usual posse also put in some good face time, Isla Fisher‘s also on good form. The laughs slow up in the third quarter and a few of the visual gags are predictable but it’s forgivable because the retro 80s hair metal / synth music soundtrack that compliments (and compensates for some of) the humour so well. For me the entire film just worked, and the production values were great. It will get bashed by any serious movie goer but Hot Rod totally exceeded my expectations and was genuinely funny throughout. Will definitely be watching again. Cool beans!

Score: 7.5/10