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JT (287 KP) rated The Book of Eli (2010) in Movies

Mar 10, 2020  
The Book of Eli (2010)
The Book of Eli (2010)
2010 | Action, Sci-Fi
6
7.4 (24 Ratings)
Movie Rating
A solid effort from the Hughes Brothers as they take on a post apocalyptic style western. Denzel Washington plays Eli a lone traveler who is following a path with a destination only he knows about. In his possession a book, so valuable to the resurrection of the human race that he’ll stop at nothing to protect it.

A story based around religion is not always going to be for everyone but if anything the cast is a shining light in an otherwise scrappy film.

Gary Oldman plays the true archetypal villain, looking like a cowboy but sounding like a biblical reverend, he truly knows how to play the bad guy. Washington gives an equally decent performance but is some way off his best.

The cinematography is stunning and the desolate landscape depicts a true reflection of the aftermath of nuclear war. It’s grainy and gritty but needed to pack more of a punch. The brief action and fight scenes are well choreographed and the twist in tale at the end should be enough raise a few questions in the car park.
  
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Genesis P-Orridge recommended The Sounds of American Doomsday Cults by Church Universal and Triumphant, Inc, in Music (curated)

 
The Sounds of American Doomsday Cults by Church Universal and Triumphant, Inc,
The Sounds of American Doomsday Cults by Church Universal and Triumphant, Inc,
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Isn’t it weird? How do they do that with their voices [ululates manically]? There’s a really good documentary called Death Cults or something, and it shows you them digging this enormous bunker, and [Elizabeth Clare Prophet] says: “The world is going to end on this date with a nuclear war”. The bunker’s not finished on time, but they go down anyway, come back out about a week later and the world hasn’t changed [laughs]. She says the master’s order wasn’t right, and that the world will actually be in four or five months. So they all go back down, and it doesn’t happen. It turns out she has brain tumours, which probably explains the entire cult, and then she dies. But it’s still going! They interviewed them a few years later. The women all look like Elizabeth Clare, with their suburban haircuts and clothes, and big smiles! There’s one piece on the album where they’re cursing pop music, and it’s just stunning. Hilarious. We play them at the beginning when we DJ!"

Source
  
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RəX Regent (349 KP) rated Godzilla (1954) in Movies

Feb 25, 2019  
Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla (1954)
1954 | Sci-Fi
10
8.2 (17 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The beginning was inspired...
Contains spoilers, click to show
I was first introduced to Godzilla in cartoon form in the 1980′s as a child, but it wasn't until 1998, with Roland Emmerich's blockbuster reboot that I had seen the infamous beast on the pearl screen. I had also seem bits and bobs of the many original sequels as a child and they had made absolutely no impact on me what so ever! But I became aware of the significance of this, the original, only recently and it was due to this discovery that I hunted down the best copy available.

I ended up with the 2005 Region 1 release, which also includes the U.S. reworking from 1956, Godzilla: King Of The Monsters!. I could not have imagined that a the 1954 version of Godzilla, or more literally, Gojira, could have been so mature, so sombre, or so tempered with its sledgehammer philosophising. Produced just nine years after the devastating nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which effectively ended the Second World War, Gojira takes up the mantle on doing what Science Fiction does best, and created the cypher in the form of Godzilla, to represent the devastation left over from the nuking of these cities.

Godzilla is a nuclear beast, affected by U.S. nuclear tests and is now toxically radioactive and upon landfall on Tokyo, rains down, literally, nuclear destruction up on the city, in a manner not dissimilar too that levied upon either of the cities, Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But its not just about that. It about the creation of the next WMD which would ultimately be used against Godzilla but poses and moral dilemma that Robert Oppenheimer himself would appreciate, as to whether such a creation should be allowed to be developed. It also looks quite seriously into establishing the potential evolution of a creature such as Godzilla and uses plausible palaeontological arguments to justify his existence.

The pacing was good and though Godzilla strikes from almost the opening frame, there is a sense of an ongoing crisis rather than an impending apocalypse, with news outlets reporting throughout as plans, both military and civilian are sited.

All in all, this is not just the birth of the massive and largely corny and cheap Godzilla series, it is a striking, intelligent, moving and incredibly well judged masterpiece of 50′s cinema. But I should have known. Most rubbish franchises began with an inspired first movie, something to break the mould and this does the job perfectly.

But it isn't without its flaws. The special effects, though not all bad, are below par even for the time, but effective as for telling the story, some were very good with ALL being well conceived and ambitious. Some were very poor though, such as the model ships, which were unnecessarily below the standards and look like bath toys. But the cinematography was wonderful, with Honda shooting this in a classically manner. Tension was built brilliantly and the action rose to several crescendos and the excellent score by Akira Ifukube was not overused but brought to perfect effect when needed.

The acting was first-rate as well, proving Japanese cinemas reputation. But this was my first real foray into Japanese cinema, and what a treat it was. Many would look at this and see a cheap old film and others will see a film that whist let down by some less that brilliant visual effects and the fact that a lot of people, certainly in the U.K. find subtitles difficult, as a masterpiece not only of Eastern cinema but of cinema full stop. Truly realising its narrative and spirit, its cause and message. This was about a county in mourning not only for the hundreds of thousands lost by Fat Man and Little Boy, but for the war full stop. The 1950′s were a time of great political fear and reconstruction after WW2, and this is a film which taps into the brewing Cold War and fear of annihilation from human behemoths which once released can never be returned.

HIGHLY recommended but not for children as they will bore, miss the point, get put off by the subtitles, black and white and quite frankly its a mature and bleak film and not the 1998 remake. And thank God or Godzilla for that!