Final Post

This is the final post that I am doing on this site. From now on, all of my posts will be on coogsreviews.wordpress.com. I've had a good run on Blogger but the design of my site leaves a lot to be desired and I feel I can do a lot more on Wordpress than I can do on here. Don't worry about content, everything from here will be moving over to Wordpress and I look forward to you reading my stuff on Wordpress. Thanks for the run Blogger.

Macbeth Review

Out of all the adaptations of the works of Shakespeare in film, Macbeth is probably the play where my familiarity comes through radically different interpretations of the text. I haven’t seen a true adaptation of Macbeth set in the time period originally described, the adaptations I’m most familiar with being Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, which adapted the text to Japanese myths, and the BBC Shakespeare Retold version with James McAvoy set in a restaurant. This new version of Macbeth is the one I’ve seen that’s truest to the text, using most of Shakespeare’s original dialogue and it’s probably my favourite of the adaptations of Macbeth I’ve seen.

The Martian Review

Over the past few years, Ridley Scott has had a pretty bad track record as a director. The last truly excellent film he directed was the Directors Cut of Kingdom of Heaven and since then we’ve had disasters like Prometheus, The Counsellor and Robin Hood. However, with those films, the stories were the problem, not the direction. All it would take for Scott to get back on form would be a story to suit his directorial style and Andy Weir and Drew Goddard provided that story with The Martian, Scott’s best film in a decade.

Bill Review

Ever since it was announced, one of the films I've been looking forward to the most has been Bill, mainly due to the cast and creative team behind it, that being the people responsible for the Horrible Histories TV series and Yonderland. Whilst I didn't really get into Yonderland, Horrible Histories is one of the best comedy TV shows made in recent years, a great combination of history, music, terrible puns, toilet humour and slapstick and the brilliance of this show has led me to call the team this generations Monty Python on numerous occasions, and if this team is the modern day Monty Python, then Bill is their Holy Grail. Whilst I had some worries due to the numerous delays in its release, the film is finally out and it fully lives up to the skill of this team.

Legend Review

Out of the big dramas coming out in the later half of this year, Legend is one of the ones I've been looking forward to. The Kray twins are two of the most important figures in British criminal history due to the way they controlled the criminal elements of London in the 1960s and they have been figures in British popular culture since then. Monty Python did a parody of them with the Piranha Brothers, shows like Whitechapel have made use of the stories of the Krays in episodes and there have been biopics about them, the most prominent one previously being the 1990 film with Gary and Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet playing the Krays. This one though has peaked a lot of interest due to the decision to have Tom Hardy play both of the Krays using twinning effects like those in The Social Network and The Double and this was the best decision made for this film. However, the rest of the film doesn't full match up to Hardy's excellent performance.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Review

It's not often that I go into a film with no expectations. I always end up seeing a trailer and reading reviews that can cloud my judgement on a film. Sometimes my expectations are too high and I end up really disappointed, other times I'm surprised when a film I had low expectations for turns out to be amazing. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is one where I had no preconceptions. I didn't see any of the trailers and I read an equal amount of positive and negative reviews, giving me a neutral image of the film and no expectations for the quality, and I think it's best that I went in like that. Having no expectations opened me up to be incredibly surprised by the film and moved by it's story.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E Review

Another day another spy movie to review. Just a few weeks after the last spy movie, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, we get another one with The Man From U.N.C.L.E, which is one of the ones I've been looking forward to the most. Whilst I was looking forward to it more with Steven Soderberg in the directors chair, Guy Ritchie was a decent choice to replace him. He's had a good track record recently and his style of directing can work for spy films. The trailers showed off a really slick, throwback to 60s spy films and that is seen throughout the film, which is what I got with the film, making it a ton of fun to watch.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Review

Once again, I’m reviewing a spy film. This has been a good year for those films, with the prior success of Kingsman: The Secret Service and Spy, and the certain future success of Spectre. In this line up we get the next Mission Impossible film. My experience with the series is definitely incomplete. I only started with the series with Mission Impossible 3 and I still haven’t seen the first 2 films, although I hear I’m not missing much by skipping Mission Impossible 2.  Still, as 3 and Ghost Protocol proved to me, these films are always a lot of fun to watch and I’m happy to say that Rogue Nation follows that trend well.

Inside Out Review (Contains Spoilers)

In the past few years, Pixar haven't been as on form as they usually are. They went from producing classic after classic with films like WALL-E, Up, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and the Toy Story Trilogy to deeply flawed films like Brave and the disaster that was Cars 2. When I heard about Inside Out though, I and most other people, believed it would signal a return to form for Pixar, especially with it being the first Pixar film for Pete Doctor since Up, and I'm pleased to say that this is the case. Even amongst the high standards of Pixar, Inside Out is one of their best.

Ant-Man Review

Out of all of the Marvel films, the one I've been the most cautious about has been Ant-Man. Originally, it was one of the ones I was most excited for due to Edgar Wright directing the film and writing it with Attack the Block writer/director Joe Cornish but when they left, I became really worried, especially since it was so close to when filming was due to start. I thought that the creative difficulties so close would mean that replacement director Peyton Reed and new co-writers Adam McKay and Paul Rudd had no chance in creating a good film. However, I have been proven wrong. Even though I would have loved to have seen Edgar Wright's vision for the film, the finished product is still an entertaining film and a worthy addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.