MyFilmViews Movie Products Blogathon

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Which movie would you find in your own Pulp Fiction briefcase? (one which you would treasure or is impossible to see because it is not available)

I’m split on whether I would want a film I have seen or one I haven’t. I think I would want a film that I haven’t seen from a director I’m unfamiliar with so I think it would be a contest between Ozu’s Tokyo Story and Cinema Paradiso. I hear they’re fantastic.

If you had a Back to the Future DeLorean, which movie related time period would you travel?

The seventies. That era from ’67 onwards to about ’79 is just terrific for films especially American ones. I’ve been trying to catch up with films from that era but I would love to see them as they were in the cinema. Films like Point Blank, Jaws, The Manchurian Candidate, The Godfather, The Exorcist, All The President’s Men, Halloween, Alien, Carrie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars etc. That era really kicked off the type of filmmaking that’s so ingrained in our minds today.

If you woke up tomorrow morning and found out that you were living your own Groundhog Day and could only escape it by watching all the movies from a specific genre, which genre would you choose and why? And which genre would be your personal hell?

Science-fiction. It’s such an interesting and imaginative genre, the kind that relies on visuals to tell the story when it’s done well. The best thing about science-fiction is that it can be mixed with other genres to great effect so you get films like The Prestige, The Adjustment Bureau or The Matrix. It’s incredibly versatile.

My personal hell would be romantic-comedies. Good rom-coms are hard to find and so many of the modern ones are incredibly derivative and clichéd. Horror films would be a close second.

You have the Neuralyzer from Men in Black in your pocket. Which movie would you travel into to use it on one of the characters to change the movie in a fun or interesting way and what would happen because of the change you made?

I would use it on John Travolta’s Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction and erase his memory so he wouldn’t have to go to Butch’s apartment. I liked that character (I liked all the characters in Pulp Fiction) so it’s a pretty selfish decision on my part. I’m not sure what it would change exactly because the movie plays with time but I’d like to see him and Sam Jackson’s Jules continue their hitman partnership.

If you would be able to enter the dreams of a famous movie character like Cobb did in Inception using the dream machine, which character’s dreams would you jump into to get to know that character better and what do you think their dream world would look like?

I’d want to delve into the mind of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, specifically The Godfather Part II. The choices he makes in that film are difficult and some of them are heartbreaking and I’d like to know what was going on in his head. Since he served in World War II, I wouldn’t be surprised if his dreams looked like a battlefield with mob bosses standing in his way.

Lacuna Inc, the company from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind just opened on the corner of your street. Which one movie memory would you delete to experience it for the first time again?

Die Hard. I grew up on those sorts of action-heavy films and they were a big part of my film experience growing up. The action in that film is great and it’s full of tension and surprises, you’re never quite sure how a scene will pan out. I’d want to experience that with fresh eyes.

Right next to Lacuna Inc, another company Rekall from Total Recall has opened as well. Which character in which movie would you like to be to experience it in first person?

Aliens. Probably from Ripley’s viewpoint. That film is sort of the jumping off point for first-person sci-fi shooters and I think the setting lends itself to being an immersive and scary environment. Who wouldn’t want to operate a gun that can shoot explosive rounds and has a flamethrower attached to it?! Or the the loader? (See below.)

Trailer round-up: Prometheus

Aft showcasing teasers for a teaser trailer, 20^th Century Fox and Ridley Scott have finally decided to reveal a better glimpse of Prometheus, a film that’s not quite a prequel (apparently) but is set in the world that Scott’s own seminal Alien began.

First things first, if this is LV-426, the world itself seems far less harsh and windswept than the time Ripley & co encountered it 30 years later which I find slightly confusing since this seems to be matching up with Scott’s film but sort of messing with Cameron’s film which had the settlers terra-form the land to turn it into a place that could be habitable. Something tells me that this could be a different planet altogether and a different form of the alien threat that we came to know in the original series.

Scott looks to be echoing the look and style of the original while glossing it up with some CGI. It leaves me somewhat wary, Alien was lean and precise, economical in the shots it used and the dank atmosphere it created. Prometheus looks alot cleaner in terms of visuals and doesn’t have that worn down aesthetic. Comparing Alien and Prometheus won’t help anybody, despite the trailer suggesting more than a few similarities

Then we have the fact that it’s set before Alien, we may not know how this particular story ends but it makes me less interested in the film unless Scott has a few surprises up his sleeve. Not knowing what happens is a valuable part of what makes a film entertaining and suspenseful; Prometheus could end up being a join-the-dots exercise…or maybe not, at this moment this is all my own speculation.

Review: Skyline – alien invasion lacks thrills

“Oh my God”

You’ll hear those words throughout Skyline. Characters summing up their feelings or what they see in those few words. You know the look, the character stares into some bright light off-screen amazed, stupefied, awestruck by whatever it is that’s attracting their gaze.

It’s a shame that instead of sharing in the amazement, the film only elicits the thought of “what was the point of that?”

Review: Predators is a pulpy sci-fi B movie

Good lord you're ugly

“They can hear you. Smell you. They see you.”

 

Predator like the Alien franchise has suffered a bit of late. After Predator 2 (shh…it never happened) and the AVP films (shh…they never happened) sapped the credibility of the franchise, it was in need of a pick me up. The original Predator is not a stunning film; you could well argue that seen today it’s not even a good one. It’s an enjoyable one with plethora of great quotes (“I ain’t got time to bleed”) and a good quota of dialogue against shit being blown up/spines being ripped out. Predator 2 and AVP were not so enjoyable so Predators had to up the quality and in doing so rescue the franchise and more importantly the predator itself from being a forgotten relic. Did it achieve its goal?

Eh…kind of.