Wow, I’ve been doing this for 5 years now? Crazy. I didn’t even realize my blog was that old… Well here we go, another year another Oscars. Lets see what predictions I can make this year. Part 1: The Outliers This group is made up of the categories celebrating whole films which are not up […]
Posts Tagged ‘foreign films’
My 2013-2014 Oscar Prediction Part 1: The Outliers
February 1, 2014My 2012-2013 OScar Predictions – Part 1: The Outliers
January 24, 2013This has been an interesting crop of nominees for the 2012-2013 Oscars. Its time for my fourth annual set of predictions. As always, I will be discussing my picks for the awards over four posts, and the I will write up a fifth posts after the awards show with the results. Part 1: The Outliers […]
Film Club Review: 13 Assassins
August 2, 201213 Assassins is a story about 13 samurai who are hired to kill a sadistic lord before he rises higher in the shogun’s counsel. Its similar to Seven Samurai in plot structure (and time period) except that they are on the offense instead of the defense. The first part of this movie is about establishing […]
Film Club Review – Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
February 3, 2012Well…. what do I say? I must confess that this started off very confusingly for me. I felt thrown in to a situation where I wasn’t given any opportunity to connect with the characters in this film, and as a result I felt like I was simply being tugged through the rest of the time. […]
My 2011-2012 Oscar Predictions – Part 1: The Outliers
January 25, 2012And so another set of Oscar predictions for a new set of Oscar nominees. Some interesting choices for many of the categories, but which will win? I’m out to break last years prediction score of 67%, and I think I can do it! Here we go! Part 1: The Outliers This group is made up […]
Film Club Review – OSS 117: Lost in Rio
January 7, 2012What a great comedy. This French James Bond spoof set in Brazil scratched just the right comedy itch. As a Bond spoof its not nearly as over-the-top as Austin Powers, but its just as hilarious. Jean Dujardin hit just the right note as Hubert de la Bath, France’s top womanizing spy. He has a sort […]
Film Club Review – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days
December 26, 20114 Months etc. is a film about a woman helping her roommate have an illegal abortion in Communist Romania during the 80s. The movie starts out in a drab student dormitory where Otilia is helping her friend Gabi pack for a three night stay in a hotel room. We don’t know what its for until […]
Film Club Review – Ran
August 18, 2011One of Kurosawa’s later films, Ran tells the story of a Japanese warlord with three sons who has decided to step down from power. I went into the movie excepting a visual feast, but what I got was a feast of high drama. I guess with a plot based from Shakespeare, I should have expected […]
The Blu-ray Files #007
August 9, 2011Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – One of my favourite films of last decade looks great in high definition. The colours are vivid, whether its the lush greens of the spectacular treetop fight, the orange earth tones of the desert flashback, or the excellent black levels of the night scenes. One thing I did notice is […]
Film Club Review – The Lives of Others
August 10, 2010This German film tells the story of a Strasi surveillance investigation of a playwright and his girlfriend in East Germany during the cold war. Wiesler, the agent in charge of the surveillance begins taking an emotional interest in his subjects as he listens to their every move. What follows is a great suspense tale with […]
Film Club Review – The Battle of Algiers
May 16, 2010The Battle of Algiers I can imagine that when Battle of Algiers came out in 1966 it had a pretty big impact upon the filmmakers of that time. This Italian-made French film tells the story of the Algerian revolt against French occupation in the 1950’s. Pontecorvo really dances with the political lines and sympathies in […]
Film Club Review – The Last Metro
May 13, 2010The Last Metro Its interesting watching the Last Metro not too long after watching Inglourious Basterds as they both deal with French theater in Nazi-occupied Paris. However, they are completely different films with very different tones. One thing that struck me right off the bat was how Truffaut is immediately able to establish a sense […]
Film Club Review – Yi Yi
May 12, 2010Yi Yi Yi Yi is a Taiwanese film about a family during the time of their grandmother’s stroke and how their lives unfold during that time period. This film is what I call a non-epic epic; it is a deep and all encompassing look at a situation which is really rather normal with not very […]
Film Club Review – The Seventh Seal
May 12, 2010The Seventh Seal Bergmann’s classic film was lot different than I was expecting. From what I have heard, I didn’t think it had such a linear storyline and was wondering how all of the parts were going to come together, which they did. The Seventh Seal is a film about nothing less than life and […]
Film Club Review – Let the Right One In
November 4, 2009Let the Right One In is a Swedish movie about a young boy who befriends a girl with a secret. The secret being that she is a vampire. The story focuses on both the recent deaths in the area which correspond to the arrival of the girl (Eli) and the story of the growing friendship […]
Ian's Movie Reviews 