Archive

Tag Archives: diver helmet

Senna

June 13, 2011
Film Reviews
Leave a comment

Senna: documentary on Ayrton Senna – a Brazilian F1 racing driver and superstar – from the late 1980s to his career-ending bender in 1994. Director Asif Kapadia misses a massive trick putting the emphasis on the Formula One seasons and not making more of the personality, background and life story of Senna – a great, highly watchable, person with a ton of charisma and charm to spare – it’s definitely more of a racing documentary than the biopic title would suggest. As the film pans out we see the trials and tribs of several seasons – focusing on the politics of F1 and the Senna/Prost rivalry – most of which is dramatic and juicy enough to keep a non F1 fan like me interested. There’s a couple of crashes that turn your stomach and the odd interview clip of Senna. An unfortunate aspect is that the picture quality is piss poor, being mostly lifted from VHS archive footage that becomes more tolerable towards the end as TV technology improved. While it’s a decent enough picture, i walked out feeling I didn’t know much more about Senna than when I went in, which was a bummer as he seemed a fascinating person.

Score: 6/10

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

April 26, 2010
Film Reviews
9 Comments

The Good, The Bad, The Weird: Set in the 1930s, a bounty hunter, most-wanted criminal and petty thief are all after the same ancient treasure map. This flick has it all: style, action, plot, rivalry, twists, adventure, suspense, guns, huge sets, humour and explosions. Most of all, it’s actually great fun to watch, with the exception of a few short ‘meh’ sections and one psychedelic scene – the rest is all killer. The whole story, but most notably the final  scenes are brilliantly executed classic Western. The Bad and Weird characters are great to watch, and the director‘s on good form. Definitely a bit more of a bloodbath than you’d expect from an upbeat film like this with scarlet, limbs and fingers flying all over the place. The audio track really comes alive during the action scenes and there’s a nice nod to Tarrantino with an epic song choice for the huge chase scene. There’s also a nice bit of Korean history thrown in the mix. Overall, it’s an amazing film from a director with a great track record, and another brilliant example of why Korea is one of the best countries as far as movie exports go.

Score 8.5/10