And in second place

So, film of the year continues. To those regular readers who remember my earlier praise, it should be no surprise that at two we have "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy".


A genuine British gem with an amazing British cast led more-than-ably by Gary Oldman. Solid performances all around, but Colin Firth, Kathy Burke, Tom Hardy are all good. In fact, scratch that, it's almost unfair to start naming people as everyone involved is excellent.


Thoroughly tense, even when there's very little "action" taking place on the screen. Everything takes place in the minute details, the slightest look can mean everything, a small action tells a whole story.


Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.


My post-film review can be found here.

Five Stars

“Super 8” finally has competition.

I saw “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” the other night and now there’s another five star film that’s been released this year. I won’t give a plot synopsis in case I accidently spoil anything, but it’s a brilliant film, filled with gripping performances and palpable tension.

Gary Oldman is outstanding (and I would expect to definitely be in line for a BAFTA) and is ably supported by a who’s who of British acting talent including John Hurt, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch and Kathy Burke.

Like I say, I don’t want to spoil anything, but I can’t recommend it enough – go and see it.

What are you still doing here? Go!

Warrior, come out to play-ay…

Another night, another advanced movie screening courtesy of Sky Movies.

This time it was “Warrior”, which is aiming to be the MMA equivalent of Rocky and stars Tom Hardy and Nick Nolte.

Two brothers have separately escaped their abusive dad and gone their separate ways. One is a school teacher, the other a former marine. All they have in common is fighting (which they do, a lot). When the elder brother’s house is due to be repossessed he enters the “Sparta” tournament, a sixteen man elimination MMA event, in the hopes of winning the $5million cash prize. However, his younger brother has reunited with their estranged father and is training in the hopes of winning the same tournament…

I appreciate that this will make me sound old, but there is absolutely NO WAY that this film should be a 12a. A lot of films get a 15 rating based on swearing. Whilst this doesn’t contain any naughty words, it contains extremely brutal violence. Lots of it. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I’m sure there was enough to warrant making this a 15. I looked on the BBFC website about this, but at the time of writing there was no further classification information available. Oh well.

The film itself is better than I expected. As predicted it is (of course) primarily about the fight scenes, but Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton give the film some heart as the two brothers, whilst Nick Nolte gives powerful support as their father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds. Wrestling fans will also enjoy the appearance of former WWE wrestler and Olympic Gold Medallist Kurt Angle as the “best MMA fighter in the world” Koba.

On the negative side, Jennifer Morrison, who was annoying in House and annoying in How I Met Your Mother, is annoying in this. Another problem is that both characters have reasons to win the five million dollars, and the film ends without explaining whether the loser resolved the problems he needed the money for, which is slightly unsatisfying. It’s also long (think it came in about 140mins), so could have done with being 30mins shorter; however I wasn’t ever really bored so that’s not a major concern.

The fight scenes are really what people are going to want to see the film for, and there’s an interesting mix of different types of fights. I found the mixture of brutal knockouts (Hardy) and ground-based submissions (Edgerton) entertaining. I’ve only got a fairly amateurish knowledge of MMA, however I would question how gripping they might be to someone who had no knowledge of the sport.

Ultimately it’s a fight movie with heart, though not as much heart as Rocky. Worth a watch if you’re in the mood for some brutal violence.

Trailer blazing

So Monday saw the release of the new teaser trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises” followed by excitement at the few frames that show Tom Hardy as Bane. It’s not a bad trailer, but personally I would have rather seen a bit more from the new film and less clips from the previous two. That said the line “every journey has an end” did get me more than a little excited in anticipation of the conclusion to the Caped Crusader’s story.

Speaking of trailers, in order to combat the “rise” of Batman teasers (boom boom), Marvel have released the first full trailer for The Amazing Spiderman. I wasn't really a fan of rebooting the franchise so quickly after Spiderman 3 (which admittedly, wasn't any good), but as trailers go, it's actually pretty spectacular. Speaking of Marvel, I'm also guessing that they'll start teasing The Avengers pretty much as soon as Captain America’s cinema tenure begins to close. More than likely it’ll all tie in to the post credit sting of Cap… not long to wait now. I’m still predicting Stark or Fury thawing him out.  

And whilst all the talk this week seems to be revolving around the final instalment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman opus, another trailer has begun to do the rounds. Looking to replace a huge studio budget with originality, the mysterious MH trailer seems suggest something that might shake up the superhero landscape in a way that hasn’t been seen since Kick Ass. I’ll be watching eagerly for more on this project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W10Td90t-Y8&hd=1

Sometimes just a little can whet the appetite for more…