‘Highlander’ (1986)

“There can be only one!”

Highlander (Russel Mulcahy, 1986) follows the mysterious Russell Nash (Christopher Lambert) who live in New York in 1985.  When Nash kills a man by decapitating him in a sword fight in an an underground car park, he leaves a piece of his sword lodged in a pillar.  Expert forensics expert and sword enthusiast Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart) discovers the piece of metal at the crime scene and upon learning its origin begins to try and uncover the truth behind Nash.  She discovers that Nash is really called Connor Macleod and was born in the Scottish Highlands in the early 16th Century.  He isone of a group of immortals existing since the beginning of time who must fight and kill each other through the ages until the time of the Gathering, when the few of them who are left out fight till there is only one, to claim ‘The Prize’.

This is one of my favourite movies and I love how the film switches between the present with Nash/Macleod’s struggles after being arrested for the murder, and his experiences in the past over the 400 odd years he’s been alive; it starts in 1518 in the Scottish Highlands and goes forward through time through his experiences in 18th Century England and Europe in the Second World War.  One of the things that made this movie so revolutionary when it was released was Mulcahy’s way of using transitions between shots.  For example, in one transition between the present and past, the camera closes into the fish tank in Nash’s apartment and then moves up, but instead of the surface of the fish tank the camera rises above the surface of a loch in Scotland.  In another transition the camera moves up through the ceiling of a car park and rises above a hill, again, in the Scottish Highlands.

Highlander wasn’t a big and popular movie upon release, it grew in popularity over time and built up a bit of a fan base, but with Sean Connery playing a part and also acting as a narrator, multiple really awesome sword fights in various impressive locations, and a soundtrack by Queen, its not surprising.

‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (1995)

“Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1995) follows Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a former accountant who in 1947 is unjustly sentenced to two life sentences for the murder of his wife and her lover.  Andy is set to serve his sentence in the tough Shawshank Prison but he is the only one who knows that he didn’t actually commit the crime he was convicted of.  While in Shawshank Andy befriends the the prison contraband smuggler Red (Morgan Freeman) and experiences the brutality of prison life as well as beginning to help the Warden with his expertise in money.

This is an amazing movie and I’m sure that most people will agree with me on this.  The story is just brilliant and actually very simple, considering it’s really only following the mundane prison life of one man for 20 years.  But its the emotions that come with it and Andy’s constant hope for life, shown by him wanting to make a decent life for himself while in prison; he tries to help people and helps improve the library, making a name for himself within the confines of the prison but in a good way.

My favourite character is probably Red, mainly because of his attitude to life and how, even though he doesn’t want to, he begins to believe in Andy’s theory of hope.  Plus, when played by an actor with a voice as amazing as Morgan Freeman he is the best character to use as the narrator.

Also, if you’ve ever watched Highlander (the original movie I mean), then you’ll recognise Handely, the head guard, as being the terrifying Kurgen from Russel Mulcahy’s movie, played by Klancy Brown.  Handley acts as the threat that Andy faces when in prison, apart from that of the other inmates, however he becomes vaguely more likeable as the movie goes on, although he is still a rather repulsive and scary character.

Because of how good and well known this movie is, if you haven’t seen it you really need to because it is truly brilliant!

‘The Departed’ (2006)

“Congratulations on passing the detectives’ exam, and welcome to the Special Investigation Unit.”

The Departed is a crime thriller directed by Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, The Wolf of Wall Street).  It follows Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), a South Boston cop who must go undercover to infiltrate the criminal organisation run by mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson).  As Costigan fights to gain Costello’s trust, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), a career criminal, infiltrates the police department and reports on their activities for his criminal bosses.  As both organisations discover they have a mole in their midst, Costigan and Sullivan must discover each other’s true identities and intentions to save their own lives.

I really enjoyed this movie because of the mystery and suspense that was present throughout, not to mention it had an amazing cast, with Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin alongside DiCaprio, Damon and Nicholson.  The mystery of who’s going to get discovered first and what’s going to happen is brilliant, with DiCaprio really playing someone who wants to do whatever he has to do to get his job done, and Damon playing a real scumbag you love to hate.

There’s also a fair amount of action through, and if you like police movies then this is definitely a great one to watch, if you can get over the Boston accent.  However, this kind of does explain why Mark Wahlberg was given a role, but its a role thats just hilarious and well suited to him so I’m not complaining, plus I like him as an actor anyway.

I would definitely recommend this movie in general, but especially if you love a good mystery movie that has you on the edge of your seat.

‘Downfall’ (2006)

 

“Tomorrow millions of people will curse me, but fate has taken its course.”

Downfall, or Der Untergang, is a German war film which depicts the final days of Adolf Hitler’s rule over Nazi Germany in 1945.  The film, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Diana, The Invasion, 13 Minutes), is based off the diary entries of Traudl Junge, Hitler’s private secretary who remained with him in Berlin’s Führerbunker until his death.  Junge, played by Alexandra Maria Lara, features heavily in the movie, following her from her arrival in Berlin in 1942 and landing her dream job of Hitler’s (Bruno Ganz) secretary.  She narrates the dictators final days as allied forces surround the city and he realises the war he is fighting is lost.

The film is all in German but with English subtitles, but this adds to the realism of it and doesn’t take anything away from it; it works because the film is set in Germany with German people all speaking German.  Having it in English would ruin the effect, just like in Valkyrie, a great movie but, with the first minute being an exception, all in English with Tom Cruise speaking in his American accent, which takes away from the fact that he is supposed to be playing a German soldier.

I really enjoyed this movie because it gives an insight into something that isn’t often considered when thinking about the Second World War and the fall of the Nazi regime.  Junge’s diaries give us an insight into Hitler’s very private life, and the fact that it is all based off diary entries written at the time by someone who was there and who experienced it makes it so much better.  I also really enjoyed it because I found it really interesting because I was studying this period and topic in GCSE history when I first watched this movie so it had extra meaning to me, but also I really like history anyway and I enjoy war films similar to this, such as Valkyrie, Enemy at the Gates, Saving Private Ryan, and Fury.

You’ll probably recognise a scene in this film if you’ve ever seen the YouTube sensation ‘Hitler Reacts’.  A scene from the movie where Hitler is told some disappointing news about invading Russian forces went viral due to his almost comical raving and ranting in German; the scene was given various different subtitles depicting the Füherious dictator shouting about everything from games consoles to football results and even the teaser trailer for the new Star Wars movie, although I do disagree with what Hitler has to say about it.  So yeah, that came from this movie.

As I said the subtitles didn’t put me off this movie or make me enjoy it any less than I would’ve if it had been in English, so I would recommend this to anyone purely because it’s different to what most people watch because of the language.

‘Suicide Squad’ (2016) – New trailer

Now I know I’ve already done a blog post on Suicide Squad as an upcoming movie, but I just had to do a quick one about the new trailer for it that was recently just released, for the only reason that it is absolutely brilliant!  Released around the same time was the awesome and very creative new poster with all the members of the Squad represented as skulls, which I thought was pretty cool.

The trailer, first off, is played to the tune of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, possibly one of the greatest and most well known songs in existence, and I couldn’t think of a better song for it!  The music fits brilliantly with the idea of the film being crazy but fun, and the whole thing has been edited to perfection with the actions of the characters matching the music; my personal favourite has to be when Headshot (Will Smith) loads and cocks a rifle to the beat of the music.

The trailer also introduces the characters more and their abilities, or problems in some cases, and really sets up the Suicide Squad.  We are shown that Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) is a very angry person who is clearly not happy at being locked up, and that Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is just plum insane, with a load of problems that make it understandable why she falls in love with the Joker.  We are also given a better look at Jared Leto’s Joker, probably the most anticipated character of the whole movie, and one that we only got a glimpse of at the end of the first look trailer.

All in all I was already really looking forward to this film but this trailer has made me want to see it even more!

Here is the first look trailer, a slightly more sinister one, but still great even without a killer song:

‘Sicario’ (2015)

“You saw things you shouldn’t have seen.”

Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015) is an action thriller which follows FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) who is given the opportunity of a top assignment after working her way up and proving herself in a very male-dominated profession and environment.  She is recruited by mysterious government official Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) to join a task force fighting the dangerous and steadily increasing war on drugs.  The team, led by the mysterious Columbian Alejandro (Benicia del Toro), travels back and forth across the US-Mexican border trying to use one cartel boss (Bernardo Saracino) to flush out another much bigger and more powerful one (Julio Cesar Cedillo).  However, Macer doesn’t quite realise what she signed up for.

I really enjoyed this movie as there was a good and effective combination of action and suspense, with some mystery thrown in to make it even better, not to mention a gripping storyline.  I really like the character of Macer as she is a very strong willed person who manages to prove herself even though others doubt her.  She is lied to from the very beginning and kept in the dark but manages to discover the truth, although when she does there is nothing she can do about it because events have already been set in motion.  As Blunt says, Macer is “a moral person caught in an amoral world, where having a sense of right and wrong is considered weak instead of good.”

Benicio del Toro’s character Alejandro is very mysterious and chilling character, and one that I found very powerful.  He is not afraid of doing whatever he has to to achieve his goal, which is not clear until the end of the movie.

The film has you wondering the whole way through who the sicario  actually is, although from partway in it seems most likely that it’s Alejandro due to his mysteriously knowledgable and experienced nature, and the fact that it is never clear who he actually is.  Del Toro actually had much more lines in parts of the film, some of it a monologue that he was supposed to deliver to Blunt’s character after saving her life about his dark and secretive past.  But he decided that someone like that wouldn’t open themselves up to someone they’ve only known for a few days, so he asked Denis Villeneuve to cut his lines and give them to Josh Brolin instead; he decided that actions speak louder than words and he didn’t need long lines of prose to define and explain himself.  This makes his character altogether more mysterious and menacing, very fitting with the person that he turns out to be.

‘Spy’ (2015)

“People are trying to kill me and all that’s left of my security guard is you two and you look like someone’s demented aunts on vacation!”

Spy (Paul Feig, 2015) is an action comedy which follows the CIA’s top analyst, Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy), who, despite her extensive field training, has spent her whole career at a desk helping and acting as the eyes and ears of dashing field agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law).  However Susan is forced to leave her desk and enter the field when Fine is killed by Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), a Bulgarian arms dealer who is in possession of a nuclear bomb, in attempt to stop Boyanov and avenge Fine.

When I first saw this movie advertised I thought it would be a bit of a train wreck and pretty terrible, however I was surprised when I actually watched it.  In the style of Bridesmaids and The Heat, also directed by Paul Fieg and starring McCarthy, it is rather stupid and over the top at times but also quite funny, with some good characters thrown in to counter the pretty terrible ones.  McCarthy as Susan Cooper appears as a goofy and rather useless person who would be the worst choice of person as a field agent, but it turns out Cooper is actually half decent and can hold her own, especially when it comes to insulting people.  I also liked how Rose Byrne’s character Rayna Boyanov was so ridiculously pretentious and up herself, very similar to her character in Bridesmaids, and it was a big contrast to McCarthy’s character who is completely the opposite.

The character who made the movie for me however was Jason Statham’s super macho and over the top field agent Rick Ford.  He is so ridiculous and actually rather useless as a spy, drawing attention to himself and messing Cooper’s mission up after he goes rogue to try and stop Boyanov himself.  Cooper actually has to save him for half the movie because he’s so arrogant and thinks he’s the best, which makes him an even funnier character.  He provides Cooper a very long list of all the amazing, very unrealistic and basically impossible, and clearly made up feats that he has accomplished and things that he has survived.

Spy wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and I was actually relatively impressed, finding it quite a funny movie, although I reckon Jude Law’s american accent could have been better.

‘Man Up’ (2015)

 

“So. Book. Check. And blind date? Check!”

Man Up (Ben Palmer, 2015) is a romantic comedy which follows a man and a woman, Jack (Simon Pegg) and Nancy (Lake Bell) on a fateful afternoon in London.  Jack meets Nancy and mistakes her for his blind date, so Nancy decides to play along to see where it goes, pretending to be Jessica, Jack’s actual date.  The date goes fantastically and the two seem meant for each other, however everything starts to go wrong when Jack realises to his horror that Nancy isn’t Jessica the triathlete, and that she isn’t 24!

I had this movie recommended to me because it was apparently really good, so I thought I’d watch it to see if it actually was and also because I’m a big fan of Simon Pegg.  As it turns out Man Up is a brilliant movie!  I really like the style of it and how it was quite a goofy movie, with both Pegg and Bell playing rather silly but emotionally mixed up characters who don’t seem to have much of a care in the world about how they act around other people and in public.  Jack is desperately trying to get over his recent divorce and the fact that his ex wife had an affair, and Nancy is in her 30s and single, and thinking that she is never going to find the right person and is going to be a single loner forever.  This means that although they don’t realise it at first and that they were never actually meant to go on a date with each other they are perfect for each other, which of course they eventually discover after a very eventful and drunken evening.

I think my favourite character of the whole movie has to be Nancy’s super creepy stalker Sean (Rory Kenner), someone she knew when she was at school and who was infatuated her from the moment he met her, but infatuation seemingly turned into a bit of an unhealthy obsession.  Although Sean is very weird and creepy, even going so far as to have a picture of Nancy’s childhood bedroom in his wallet that he took from climbing up a tree, he kind of brings Nancy and Jack back together.  I say kind of because he takes Jack to her neighbourhood but tells him the wrong house number to get to Nancy first, but when Jack does eventually get there he is seemingly happy for her.  His very over the top and ridiculous obsession with Nancy is just hilarious and adds another element to the film!

The movie of course has a happy ending, but it takes quite a few turns and, tragedies and very funny circumstances  until it actually gets there, which I really like.  I’m not really into RomComs or movies like this, but I really liked this movie and thought it was great!

‘Jessica Jones’ (2015)

“Would you put day drinking under experience or special abilities?”

I’ve been meaning to start watching this since it was released but only got round to it when I was on holiday recently and had free time, and I was very impressed!

Jessica Jones is a Netflix created Marvel miniseries about former super hero, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), who becomes a private investigator in New York’s ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, the home of Marvel’s Daredevil, in and attempt to restart her life. However her life is once again turned upside down when and old enemy, Killgrave (David Tennant), a man who can manipulate people to do what ever he wants by simply speaking to them, returns and starts to act out his revenge on Jessica.

I’m only 6 episodes in to the series but already I’m enjoying it immensely and find it a brilliant series.  Part of the reason I really like it is because, in the same way as Daredevil, it puts a much darker twist on the Marvel Universe, which is slightly more child friendly due to the nature of the movies; the movies can be dark at times but not as dark as the Daredevil and Jessica Jones series, and the DC Comics movies, and also lack the realism.  In Jessica Jones Jessica is hired by a woman who want to kill her purely because she has super powers, as an act of revenge for the fact that her mother was killed by a falling building in the Battle of New York that is detailed in Avenger Assemble; the Avengers movie glosses over the fact that there was large amounts of collateral damage and focuses on the fact that the Avengers saved the day and everyone was better off at the end of it.  I’m not dissing Avengers at all, I love that movie, but Jessica Jones adds an element of realism that the Marvel Universe was lacking.

I also absolutely love the characters.  Jessica herself is the eponymous hero of the series, but she is a foul mouthed alcoholic one at that, who does whatever she has to do to get the job done.  It subverts the norm of the classic ‘superhero’, creating an even better one in the process.

I also really like the character of Luke Cage (Mike Colter), who’s superpower is indestructibility as opposed to Jessica’s super strength, but equally as different and as dark as Jessica when compared to classic superheros.  He is supposed to get his own series this year, which will be amazing, and then hopefully at some point Jessica, Luke and Daredevil will team up to form The Defenders, another Marvel superhero team, with characters such as Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, Hulk, Namor and many more.

David Tennant plays the character of Killgrave amazingly, and presents him as a brilliant, dark and truly psychopathic, and frankly very creepy, villain.  Killgrave can control people and make them do whatever he wants just by speaking to them and making them suddenly really want to do what he says.  He uses this to his advantage, making people his personal slaves, getting money and even making people kill themselves.  He is truly terrifying as he appears to have no morals whatsoever, and is shown to have a very disturbing fixation and obsession over Jessica as he tries to get his revenge.  This makes him very different to most Marvel villains as he is just overall a darker and disturbing character; there isn’t really a comedic element to him as there is with some villains, such as Loki.  I don’t think any other actor apart from David Tennant could have played him, certainly not with the same effect anyway.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the series as it looks set to get even better!

Upcoming movies – ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ (2016)

Recently the trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence, the sequel to Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996), was released.  The movie is directed by Roland Emmerich and set to be released in June 2016, 20 years after the first movie, also directed by Emmerich.  The film is set around yet another attempted alien invasion of Earth, but this time the Earth is better prepared.  Humans have used recovered alien technology from the first invasion (shown in the first movie) to upgrade their weaponry and create a defence network around the planet.  This technology can be seen in the trailer in the form of upgraded fighter jets and other various turrets and weapons.

Jeff Goldblum returns as David Levinson from the first movie and is joined by Liam Hemsworth who plays Jake Morrison.  However, Will Smith’s character, Captain Steven “Steve” Hiller of the USMC, is not present in the trailer or in the movie at all.  20th Century Fox provided a reason and a backstory for his absence to put fans minds at ease, claiming that Hiller was killed in 2007 whilst test flying and jet with alien technology and it went wrong.

Now this movie looks like its not going to be too bad, but I’m not super excited about it.  In my opinion it should’t have been made and Emmerich should have just left the idea alone after making the first Independence Day; it should have been left as a stand alone movie and not turned into a series.  I don’t think the film will be bad and I will probably watch it at some point, but probably not in the cinema, I just think that the whole alien invasion idea can be a bit over done and ruined if not careful.  However there is one element of the trailer that I do like, and that is how the famous speech from the first movie, about how the 4th of July will be known as the world’s Independence day, can be heard in the background.  I like this as it is a reference to the first movie, although I don’t think that too many references to the first film should be included as it will most likely ruin it; if references are included they should be subtle.