Blog posts by year and monthOctober 2009
Posts (11)
5 Live Review: Fantastic Mr Fox
5 live's resident movie critic Dr Mark Kermode reviews Fantastic Mr Fox. Go to Mark on 5 Live for more reviews and film debate. (Please note this content is only available to UK viewers)
The ten-second vampire movie
So it's true: the undead really are. Since Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee first donned Dracula's wardrobe, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise have chugged romantic gore in Ann Rice's Interview with a Vampire and even Eddie Murphy blooded himself as a Vampire in Brooklyn. But this year has seen a rhesus positive infestation with Stephen Moyer in True Blood and Robert Pattinson in Twilight representing only the fang tips of a blood sucking army that includes representatives from as far away as Korea and Denmark. So why can't we resist vampires? And more to the point, how do you get to be one? Now Halloween is here, allow me to explain...
The second second time around
So Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam and David Lynch are the directors whose work troubles you enough to demand more than a single viewing, but really, just how many times does anyone need to see Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd in Anchorman? For some, more than you'd think. Also this week, the very last...
Trailer Treachery
Whether using the popular visages of Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell to promote The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus or a night vision shot of a movie audience launching its popcorn in the air to demonstrate how terrified everyone will be when they see Paranormal Activity (the new "scariest m...
Jen Again
The path from small screen to big screen is littered with disasters (and let's not even mention Jennifer Aniston's Friends co-alumni), but you, the staunch and loyal movie going Kermode Uncut bloggers, have identified many without whom our movie viewing lives would be infinitely the poorer...
The Revisitations of Doctor Kermode
There are some films, like Heath Ledger's last movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (also starring Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp and directed by Python genius Terry Gilliam), that definitely warrant a second viewing to solidify or adjust a critic's first appraisal. Others just go to ...
Big Budget Catastrophes of Pure Joy
Some of you objected to my choice of Howard the Duck as the greatest big budget movie disaster of all time but among your own selections, which include Sharon Stone's mighty Basic Instinct 2 and Bruce Willis's ineffable Hudson Hawk, are salutary lessons about the permeability of the membrane between bad and good.
When paying higher taxes really pays off
Within the black umbra of the world economic collapse, film industry finance hasn't had it so bad for years. So how will the new 50 per cent tax threshold affect those working in the industry? Well, at least for one filmmaker, in a surprisingly satisfactory way and with a possible entente cordia...
From Back to the Future to the Piano... You hum it and I'll play it
So you like Joy Division in Control and Jeremy Northam at Gosford Park but Michael J Fox on stage in Back to the Future movies stirs up all kinds of reactions. And what about all those accordion movies, eh?
5Live Review: Invention of Lying
5 live's resident movie critic Dr Mark Kermode reviews Invention of Lying. Go to Mark on 5 Live for more reviews and film debate. (Please note this content is only available to UK viewers)