My Week in Film: June 18, 2012: Cosmopolis

Image: Robert Pattinson and Kevin Durand star in COSMOPOLIS. Courtesy of eOne Films

This week I trekked out to the theatre to see our Book to Film Club selection of Cosmopolis (dir: David Cronenberg, Canada/France/Italy/Portugal/2012), and I now remember that a strong reason I picked it was to have a Canadian film included in the Book to Film Club and this was our first! Yay for that! Sadly, I didn't overly love the book by Don DeLillo as I couldn't connect to or believe in the protagonist Eric, played in the film by Robert Pattinson. He's introduced as rich, smart and with a staff so trained to respond to his every whim. Personally, I don't find that very interesting, and I didn't believe either the richness nor the intelligence of the character. Both the richness and intelligence were displayed, especially in the effects of, but I didn't believe it. I did find that it felt pretentious, which I had to look up to ensure it met the definition and "making claims to excellence or importance" and "doing things for show" both really describe the character, and the themes of the film. So left with not believing in the character, you are pretty much left with enjoying this 'near future' world, which again didn't quite read for me but baring that I was hoping with a cast that includes Juliette Binoche, Kevin Durand, Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton and Jay Baruchel I would at least be in for some good acting. And there was some, but only some.

For those who may not know, I'm a big fan of Twilight and have been impressed with Rob in other films including Little Ashes and his supporting role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I think he's really got potential for acting but worry that due to his stardom the trajectories he can take don't match a normal learning curve, so he can be pretty much thrown to the wolves. In Cosmopolis, I felt that he is thrown to the wolves but from the structure of the film that parses out to many different conversations, often only with one other person, it's like many small battles as opposed to one big fight. The fight analogy is only in winning over the audience though, as it's how well the two people on screen work together that is going to win the audience over. I was won over by Samantha Morton the most, and it was strange because in a lot of what her character says is the most 'out there', yet I understood it and more importantly I felt that she understood it. If she wasn't in the film, I think I would have come away feeling very disappointed, but with her there I felt like I did walk away with something. I also enjoyed Kevin Durand as Eric's bodyguard/chief of security, although there wasn't much different in the various conversations in the film. The dialogue often felt like it was suppose to be very meaningful and insightful, yet I almost never felt it and on the flip side the there was so much flinging about in the limited space provided it really gave the impression of trying hard to be really interesting. But without impact on dialogue, this really felt like they were just making up for it.

I can sense the spirit of the book and the film are to engage the mind and tantalize the senses, and if people have that experience I am really happy for them. I know there are other films where I am right there with the character, nodding along in their challenges and cheering for them to take on and go for it, but I didn't feel that way about Cosmopolis. I felt pretty quickly that I wasn't the target audience because I didn't care about the characters. And if I don't care, then I'm barely there. It does feel trademark Cronenberg with the intellectual themes and speckled with visceral body craziness, so if that's what you are hoping for then Cosmopolis is one for you.

I saw Cosmopolis here in Toronto at the Varsity after it's June 8, 2012 wide release. For international release dates check here, although no US release date is noted I've 'heard' of August 2012 is when to expect if from several sources.

See also my Cosmopolis vlog review & Cosmopolis podcast review.

I'm excited to share that my vlog review of Cosmopolis has quickly become my most viewed video over at the Movie Moxie YouTube Channel. I do wish that had happened with a film I enjoyed more, but alas, that too could still happen.

Up next: Prometheus. I have actually now seen Prometheus but I need more than 24 hours to digest and relay my thoughts on it. I'll be reviewing it in vlog and podcast format this Friday June 22, 2012 as will write about it with next weeks My Week In Film post.


Image: Robert Pattinson and Sarah Gadon in COSMOPOLIS. Photo credit Caitlin Cronenberg Courtesy of eOne Films


Me seeing Cosmopolis!

My Week in Film: June 12, 2012: Worldwide Short Film Festival, Snow White and the Huntsman, Exploring YouTube & More!

Image from: Gravity of Center, from the Official Selection Creative Control program at 2012 Worldwide Short Film Festival

Hey Everyone!

I hope everyone survived the crazy hot weekend that was just here in Toronto. I swear, we get the craziest weather. I stayed out of it and continued along some marathons I'm working on although heading to the theatre might have been a smart retreat! Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

Most recently I headed out the The Worldwide Short Film Festival last week and enjoy oodles of short films. The opening night was packed and had an awesome selection of award-winning short films from around the world and it was quite an impressive selection. I was particularly fond of the inventiveness of Luminaris (dir: Juan Pablo Zaramella), the haunting nostalgia of The Fisherman / El pescador (dir: Samantha Pineda Sierra from Mexico , and of course the ode to monster movies in The Elaborate End of Robert Ebb / La mysterieuse disparition de Robert Ebb (dirs: Fx Goby, Matthieu Landour and Clément Bolla).

I also headed out to the festival on Day 2 to enjoy the Official Selection Programs of The Family Compact and Creative Control. I also really enjoyed Official Selection Creative Control, in particular the fabulous movement piece Gravity of Center (Dir: Thibaut Duverneix) with the RUBBERDance troupe, the heartfelt tragic comedy Lifetripper (dir: Graeme Joyce) starring Rob Benedict and the absolutely extraordinary Withering Love / Les amours perdues (dir: Samanou Sahlstrøm) starring Emmanuelle Béart and Denis Lavant which touched my heart with it's haunting, tragic romance. The Official Selection Family Compact had several films that caught me including the clever short Long Distance Information (dir: Douglas Hart) starring Peter Mullan and Alan Tripney as well as the touching documentary Me Without You / Mig uden dig (dir: Aage Rais-Nordentoft) from Denmark.


Images from: A Shadow of a Doubt / Skyggen af tvivl; Morten Holst and Nikolaj Dencker Schmidt in To All My Friends / Til alle mine venner

Speaking of Denmark, Day 3 held the treat of Film School Spotlight: Super 16 Anarkino program full of Danish film to love, and love it I did! The Film School Spotlight: Super 16 Anarkino program was my favourite of the festival even though I had already seen the film Dennis back in 2008 and it only had 5 films, but they were all gems. I adored the sensitive romance/personal journey film A Shadow of a Doubt / Skyggen af tvivl (dir: Esben Tønnesen) starring Nicolei Faber & Anders Hove that followed the beautiful forming of a new relationship with also showing the doubts and memories of the past. I was also blown away by the film To All My Friends / Til alle mine venner (dir: Behrouz Bigdeli) starring Morten Holst and Nikolaj Dencker Schmidt as two friends against the world, against the odds, and the complexity when that starts to put them against each other. It's not an easy watch with the enormous amount of tension and the obviously limited resource they live in, but the formidable performance will blow you away.

Overall, it was another great year at the festival and I was so happy to be able to get out and see so many films. See all of my Worldwide Short Film Festival Coverage here.



Fairy Tale Femme-tastic: Snow White and the Huntsman
Although I didn't see it last week, my most recent venture to the theatre was to see Snow White and the Huntsman (dir: Rupert Sanders, USA/2012) starring Kristen Stewart (Twilight) as Snow White, Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen and Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as the Hunstman. This film ranks high on the #7 spot of my My Most Anticipated Films of the Year for 2012 as the story looks compelling, it has fabulous women in it (and men...), and the art direction looked divine. And divine it was, the world they created was on that you feel like you could step right into and marvel at it's beauty, as well as the bizarre dangers that also lurked there. I was so happy with Snow White and the Huntsman as it honours the original story yet really aligns and makes accessible the theme of beauty and power, without it feeling superficial or silly. It's a tale of deep hurt as well as the challenge to face the fear and striking odds, but also offers a positive and inspiring perspective. I loved how it's also very much about the women in the film, not only Snow White and Ravenna (The Evil Queen), but other women as well. It makes me curious about the choice in the title, and although I enjoyed the character of The Huntsman and Chris Hemsworth's performance, it wasn't overly played up in the film. I loved that, because the story is really about the women. It's so rare to see and it really worked here. I can't go without saying that the costumes were gorgeous, especially for Ravenna, Coleen Atwood does it again! I loved the film, I highly recommend it to fantasy film fans and especially for people who enjoy female protagonist films. I can't wait to see it again. If you want to hear even more about Snow White and The Huntsman, hear my review with co-host Marina Antunes over at the Before the Dawn Podcast.

Tuning into SciFi TV: American Warships!
I had the pleasure of guest hosting on a recent episode of The Saturday B-Movie Reel to chat about American Warships with host Kevin Bachelder and fellow co-host Gary Mitchel from the RevolutionSF.com. We had a blast chatting about the film which was previously titled American Battleship and came hot off the heels of Battleship. There was so much fun to enjoy, and the discussion continued on and on as director Thunder Levin and wardrobe designed Ashley Crist listened and responded to the podcast! They bring up some good points that I definitely will make note of and I am really impressed that they chimed in. Check out the podcast over here at Tuning into SciFi TV.

Exploring YouTube
You may have noticed that there is a lot of vlogs popping up over here at Movie Moxie recently, and I'm hosting them somewhere new for me but not new to most. That's right folks, I've actually created my own YouTube Channel, aptly named: http://www.youtube.com/user/ShannontheMovieMoxie . It's quite a culture shift, but I'm starting to get the hang of it and am very curious to see what other people post about, and what people watch. I'm not totally big on the transparency that how many views you have is so 'out there', but wow, that's just the way it is. If you are a fellow YouTuber, feel free to subscribe and swing by. Almost all the content will be uploaded here at Movie Moxie and the DVD Releases, Marathon Vlogs and Recent Release vlogs are compiled and included in audio form in the weekly Movie Moxie Podcast. More ways to enjoy content is a good thing, right? I hope so! As a sampling, I've included the review of Film School Spotlight: Super 16 Anarkino below:

My Week in Film: May 28, 2012

Oh man, a monkey walked into my wrench works of the Week in Film post! I totally get confounded by wanted to always have this up on Monday morning, yet not wanting to write it on Sunday. I apparently want to shimmy a hole in the space time continuum to write it somewhere mystically between the two. Alas, until I do that (and I will!) I'll just be a little later this week than I'd like.

That was the first monkey of the week. The second was that I haven't seen any new theatrical releases since last week. I had all the best intentions of check out some special screenings but more monkeys flew into those plans. But, that doesn't mean I didn't see anything. When monkeys try to play with your life, just clear them away and take a crack at the good old Owned/Unseen pile. That's what I did and got through two choice selections from my pile including Indonesian action flick/journey film Merantau & science fiction drama Code 46.



First up Merantau (dir: Gareth Evans, Indonesia/2009), which I was really looking forward to as it stars Iko Uwais and is directed by Gareth Evans who brought us the absolutely fantastic film The Raid (now The Raid: Redemption) which I fell in love with after seeing it during TIFF 2011. It was the Midnight Madness opener, but I opted to see it during the day (which actually ended up being pretty awesome - see why here), and since then I wanted to see their first film Merantau. Now, I've not had the best track record when I go back to watch earlier action films as I find you usually get great action and everything else can be, well, not so great. So my expectations were pretty low, just hoping for the good action.

Low and behold I should have held those expectations higher as it's an overall great film with a wonderful journey story of coming into ones own, which is what the title of Merantau means. So, and action film and a journey film. Shannon was a happy film watcher, that's for sure. I loved the sentiment of the story and the whole do-good attitude, even when faced with trouble and turmoil. Yep, I'm going to buy that every, single time. Every time. Of course you are probably wondering about the action aren't you? About seeing more of the gorgeous martial arts form of Silat, yes? It was awesome. And plentiful. And daring. All of the action is very believable, incredibly skillful and fantastically entertaining. I was actually kind of worried at a few of the stunts, but thankfully the DVD has a lot of extras to explore which after the fact calmed down my "omg, did they just like DO that?" freak-out moments. Extremely impressive and very entertaining, Merantau way exceeded my expectations. Iko Uwais is unbelievable, so fluid and powerful as a martial artist and also a strong actor. Fans of The Raid will also recognize Yayan Ruhian who plays Eric here, and Mad Dog in The Raid who is also fantastic. Be sure to check out the extras on Merantau for lots of behind the scenes, production journals, delete scenes, stunt work and choreography to screen fight comparison. Great film. Enjoyed every minute of it.



Switching gears completely I then took in the science fiction/drama/romance Code 46 (dir: Michael Winterbottom, UK/2004), and I'm not all that sure where I heard about this one first. It's high-concept science fiction but in a very accessible/near future-like world so I'm thinking it's one of those ones that hit festivals and rippled through all my science fiction-y film friends and I'm glad it did as it was excellent. It stars Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton and as a lot of it is about the concept, I don't actually want to say too much, but it definitely works with the power and perception of rights and freedoms as well as choice, fate and risk. There is also a beautiful and daring feel to the film, one that's hard to pin down and place but is ever present. There is also a truly worldly setting that is intriguing and curious. I'd highly recommend it to any fans of science fiction, speculative fiction and/or themes of choice, fate and destiny.

Those two where a bit of a bizarre pairing, but their common factor beyond going from unseen to seen was that they were both awesome. Now my 2012 Owned/Unseen List is up to 5/20 seen. One quarter of the way there, and not yet halfway way through the year. Not bad. But more importantly, I loved the films.



Countdown Update: Bondathon and Countdown to Prometheus

I also continued my marathons this weekend taking another chip off the Bondathon with Thunderball and continuing to Countdown to Prometheus with Aliens 3 (or CUBED as my family calls it). With the Bondathon I was starting to get a little leery only 3 films in after not liking From Russia with Love and being unimpressed with Goldfinger, but Thunderball gets everything back on track in the best way. I should admit to the fact that I love water and therefore was over the moon (or under the sea) happy to see how much of Thunderball uses water and has a substantial amount of scenes underwater. Totally cool. Plus, some great action as well in a more traditional sense so it reeled me right in and kept me glued to the screen for the entire 2+ hours. Then I headed out into space with Aliens 3 and wow, I really love this movie too. I've seen it many times, and it's extremely tense but it's so good. It's much grittier than the first two Alien films but it's also gutsy and different, both visually and story wise, and it has one heck of a different setting and cast of characters. I know it doesn't get as much love, and I'm not quite sure why although often when you go 'different' you lose some of the flock. I can imagine the fact that the majority of the cast has strong accents may be a barrier for some ears, but the acting os so good you surely get the sentiment of what these fellas are trying to convey. It does lead me over the bump of the films in the series that I like though, and sadly just leaves me with Alien Resurrection to watch, which I am not particularly fond of. Hopefully the revisit will spark something new to enjoy. As always, I attempt to remain eternally hopeful.

Remember to check out my Bondathon and Countdown to Prometheus Vlogs which are posted on Wednesdays, or listen to my reviews on Fridays on The Movie Moxie Podcast.

This week I'm hoping to get out to the extreme tourism/horror flick Chernobyl Diaries. Let's hope that happens!

Week in Film: May 21, 2012

After what feels like a huge amount of time from seeing films at the theatre I finally got back at it and saw 3 theatrical release over the weekend including the bombastic Battleship, gothic comedy Dark Shadows and box-office smasher The Avengers.

First up: Battleship. (dir: Peter Berg, USA/2012) Wow. It's loud. It's long. It's crazy ridiculous and I had a hell of a lot of fun watching it. I had a blast watching it, even the ridiculousness of the clarity of the broad strokes of the film that really hammer home what you should be paying attention to and what the relationship dynamics are. There is no way you are going to miss them! And sure, it kind of feels like Battle Los Angeles Navy-Style in an over the top blockbuster tone and all set to highly recognizable songs, but I'm totally okay with that. And even at the over 2 hours running time, I never once looked at the time. Not once.

I do wonder if they took a few liberties with the chain of command type stuff, but other than that it was easy to just kick back and enjoy it. It's quite very far removed from the game but I don't think there was much expectation they would truly centre the film on that but the tie-in's are cool and I really enjoyed the overall sentiment and mentality. This is not a film to go for to see the acting, even though there are good actors like Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgård and Tadanobu Asano (with short hair! /cry), but it's really about the action. I do feel for Taylor Kitsch though as his character is very prominent but really mostly reads as 'angry'; which is too bad as he does have good range (I thought he was quite good in John Carter), but mostly we get angry/troubled waster which was just missing something for me, a little more back story or something. But as I said, it's not really a film to see for the acting but the action, explosions, craziness on water and overall spectacle. And on that it delivers. I'd easily watch it again, and I'll be sure to get it on DVD. Or maybe I'll finally have a Blu-Ray player by then! The only thing I was very suprized at about the film was that it's not 3D. It felt like it would be, but I'm fine with keeping my extra $2, $3 or $5 instead!



Dark Shadows and The Avengers ~ Rather watch than read? Check out my vlog here!

Dark Shadows 2012 (dir: Tim Burton USA/2012) was actually the first film I saw in the theatre after the too-long-not-planned break. For me, that's like 3 weeks, which really feels like an eternity and what better way to settle back into think with a Tim Burton/Johnny Depp gothic vampire film based on a soap opera? I thought it was the perfect choice. And I needed to see if for an upcoming episode of Before the Dawn so it fit even more perfectly. One good thing to know about Dark Shadows is that it's a gothic comedy. Any time they can go for humour, they do, and it's often done well but out of the different ways to portray gothic, vampire, creatures or the supernatural, comedy is likely my least favourite vehicle so I found that to be a bit of a disappointment although it's very true to the trailer and a lot of it is very funny. The film follows the Johnny Depp as Barnabus Collins, a vampire who returns to his family in the 1970's after years of unrest, but to be honest I felt like his story wasn't the most interesting thread of the film. I was much more interested in the stories of the women characters who were fabulous. I really did love the women in the film, but wish we saw more of them. We have Michelle Pfieffer as the Barnabus family matriarch, Eva Green (Casino Royale, The Golden Compass, Franklyn) as the baddie and Bella Heathcote plays the character that brings the film together, however she's barely in the film and rarely in the spotlight. So sadly we have yet another Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaborations where just like Alice in Wonderland (2010), the story's true protagonist is not Johnny Depp but they put him in the forefront. It creates quite a disconnect in both the predominance of his characters in the films and the marketing of the films. To be honest, that makes me sad as I've loved many of the films I've seen with them as a duo director/actor from Sleepy Hollow to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, but even my patience is wearing thin. I hope it's changed up if it continues, or just really had Johnny Depp as the true lead. That would work too!

After seeing Dark Shadows I met up with my sister Jamie and her honey and we went to see The Avengers (2012) in AVX (and 3D - although I don't see the 3D), and this will just be a mini/kinda/not-really review because I was sadly struck by a bad decisions made prior to the film. I've seen the first Iron Man and I loved Thor, but I hadn't actually seen Captain America: First Avenger before heading into The Avengers. Not on purpose, it just came out during my move last year and I never ended up seeing it. I asked around a bit to check in if I needed to see it beforehand and got some feedback that I'd be okay. Wow. Not a good choice. The Avengers totally spoiled Captain America for me, and in fact I hold that experience and sadness over whatever else the film had. And there was one consistency of story/character thing that's a crossover from Thor that I didn't believer. But, if I do my best to distance from that I will give that it has great action, amazing characters who all get a fair share of screen time giving the breadth of the ensemble cast, and in true Joss Whedon fashion it makes me want to go back and watch it again and again to pick up the multiple layers. It's understandable on a first-watch, but you want more. I don't know how Joss Whedon does that, but it's a true stamp of his work. And I quite enjoyed the character interactions, specifically Mark Ruffalo as Hulk & Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark - they were golden. But, it still stings me about Captain America. Oh well, good learning to trust the gut and know you ways of things; and my way of things is to be thoroughly prepared. That's the Shannon way! Hopefully with time passing and maybe a mini-marathon later in the year I'll work back up to be able to fall in love with The Avengers.

One of the cool things about this week was heading to The Carlton, which is a theatre that I go to less frequently, but that means I don't know as much about what's going on there and I was treated to a whole slew of posters for upcoming films I hadn't seen before, and often I hadn't heard of. One I certainly have heard of is our current Book to Film Reading Selection Cosmopolis, and what do you know I actually had it on me for an impromptu side-by-side shot!



And then I of course became curious about all the new-to-me films they had posters up for including: In the Family, Foreverland, Jesus Henry Christ, Patang and Hope Springs.



I love discovering new films! It's amazing that you really never know what each week will bring, this one was a lot of fun. And I like fun!

In non-theatrical endeavours I've continued the Bondathon with From Russia with Love and started a Prometheus Countdown with revisiting the original Alien. It's been a lot of fun and I'm finding the Prometheus one more fun than Bond! Which kind of freaks me out as there are many more Bond films to go!

I'll be back next week with more films to share and I'm actually not quite sure what I'll pick! A surprize it will be.

My Week in Film: May 14, 2012

Re-instating My Week in Film & getting back to my roots.

Planning, planning, planning

My Week in Film Returns!
Okay , so that picture doesn't have any films in it... but it was part of what set in motion the events to bring this post series (back) to life. I've been thinking a lot about this site, how its grown over the years and what I consider truly essential to the site. When I thinking about that I realize that one piece fell off the board at some point, which was simply sharing something about the films I've seen, the experience of watching film and film culture. It may crop up here and there but its home was rooted in My Week in Film post (* see history below). And I've decided to bring it back, because roots are good. I like roots. They keep me grounded, and I could really use that right now so here we go, back into the root-fold!

I love that irony in the fact that I am bringing this column back when I haven't seen any new releases. Maybe I had this big realization because I had time to think when I wasn't at the theatre all the time! The mind works in mysterious ways. Although I didn't see any new theatrical releases, I did get a chance to tackle the first film in the Bondathon with Dr. No and also caught up with 2 Owned/Unseen list films, which I'm very happy about as it's May and I've barely made any progress there this year so far. But first, let's have a look at Mr. Bond.

Bondathon Film #1: Dr. No
Wow, great way to start the Bondathon as re-visiting Dr. No I realized I quite like this one. I was particularly in love with the art direction and lighting (yes, I know that's odd given all the possible things to love), but also was so impressed by the fact that so many quintessential Bond elements are present from the very beginning. How he says his name, the quintessential drink, the worldly travel, the high-society living, a great villain; all of these are strong elements in the world of Bond and are firmly cemented here. That was wild to see. I was also impressed but the espionage elements in the film, not only active but also proactive and preventative, and the strong awareness of danger/deception but not letting that shake him. That's confidence for you! Overall, I'm ranking this one pretty high. Oh, I guess I should rank them. I'll have to remember to do that. Dr. No was definitely a strong start to The Bondathon and I'm so happy it's begun!
See also: Bondathon: Dr. No Vlog and the Bondathon Post with Film Schedule here

Owned/Unseen: Drive Angry & Hitman
Ah, the Owned/Seen pile gets 2 films shorted with viewing both Drive Angry and Hitman. Let's start with Drive Angry; I really wanted to see it in the theatre due to the over the top attitude, supernatural feel and awesome casting (I'm huge Billy Burke fan - he plays Charlie, Bella's dad, in Twilight). On top of that several people I know have seen and loved the film so I thought this was going to be a sure fire win. I'll admit - there is a lot of craziness in there, Nicolas Cage doing the awesome over the top thing, William Fichtner is incredible as the big-attitude, smart mouth, kick-butt guy, Billy Burke is also great as the crazy villain and Amber Heard also kicks some serious butt. There is lots of violence, in almost all ways, and it's usually stylized and over-the-top and often played with dark comedy in mind. I understand that, but I was completely thrown out of the film for the repeated gratuitous nudity - which made me IMDB the film to reveal that ah, yes, it's the same director as the My Bloody Valentine re-make, a film that created a new level to gratuitous nudity. I just find it boring, and ridiculous, and it throws me out of the film. It's too bad, because there are a fair amount of great things in Drive Angry, but I likely won't even re-watch it now because of this as it makes it a film where I could have been the target audience and let's me know that really I'm not. Quite the disappointment.

Oddly, a lot of the same themes of gratuitous nudity and violence carry over to Hitman, although my reasoning for seeing Hitman is very different. I don't remember if I wanted to see it initially (hard to tell, it came out during Reel Asian in 2007 so I was busy that week), but I wanted to see it as the film came to me at a strong, and repeated, recommendation from my Mom. And that just floored me. Any time it was on TV she'd call me and let me know - and I'd check with her that it's the one about a hitman, based on the video game, protagonist with shaven head, and yep, yep, yep that's the one. Wild. So I watched it and I was floored by the supporting cast: Ulrich Thomsen, Robert Knepper and Henry Ian Cusick? Seriously? Wow. And I enjoyed them in the film, along with Timothy Olyphant whom I like in pretty much everything he does, but I couldn't get over the fact that is character was a hit man, yet you could easily pick him out of a crowd with that shiny head. Seriously. There is no being incognito there. I would assume that's to continue the stylization from the game, but I couldn't believe that he wouldn't garner way too much attention. There was also some pretty disturbing torture in the film, although that may only be on the Unrated DVD version I had. But as a stylized action film with a different twist and setting for a film, I felt it was actually pretty entertaining - often ridiculous and over the top, but entertaining nonetheless and for that I would likely re-watch it. I never thought that out of Drive Angry and Hitman the one I would enjoy more would be Hitman, but it is.

The thing with watching owned/unseen films is that they are often impulse buys, or add-ons for free shipping, or I so-great-a-deal-I-can-buy-it-from-my-change-purse kind of deals. When that's the case, I give the film a little more leeway as my expectations are lower, but in this case I actually was truly interested (or at least curious) in the films, so not loving them stings a little bit. Especially Drive Angry. But, seeing these 2 films brings me up to 3/20 on my Owned/Unseen Challenge. YAY for progress!
See also: 2012 Owned/Unseen List and Week in Film vlog chatting Drive Angry & Hitman

* A Brief History of My Week in Film at Movie Moxie
Week in Film Vlog previously stopped when I started the Movie Moxie Podcast, and My Week in Film written posts previously stopped when I started vlogging instead (my last written post for Week in Film was way back in 2009 with a last push at watching Oscar nominees). One of the reasons I love having a blog is that I can go back and find out why I did something, or at least find a clue. The answer may not always be obvious and sometimes I don't get an answer, but it can often jog my memory enough to remember why I made a decision. That being say, I'm bringing My Week in Film back, and sharing it in multiple formats: written posts like here, vlogs and also audio version on The Movie Moxie Podcast. See this weeks Week in Film Vlog here.

It's wild to see things come full circle, or maybe even in this case, full spiral as I've chosen to do what I'm doing now, plus add back things I've done before.

Upcoming
That's it for this weeks My Week in Film! I'm hoping to get out to The Avengers and I *have* to get out to Dark Shadows this week, so hopefully I'll be checking in on those with you next week with continuing the Bondathon with From Russia with Love and starting to work through the Alien films in anticipation for Prometheus.


Bondathon starts strong with Dr. No


Tackling the Owned/Unseen Pile


Happily returning to vlogging

Week in Film Vlog for May 13, 2012

I've decided to re-instate My Week in Film Vlog (possible written version also in the works too) to share the films I've new releases and films seen recently. This week I wrap up Hot Docs 2012 sharing thoughts on films seen at the festivals as well as chatting up my progress on my 2012 Owned/Unseen List.

Please note if you prefer just listening, the Week in Film Vlog are included in the Movie Moxie Podcast. Listen to this weeks episode here.

Mentioned in the Vlog:

• I mention that I will now be vlogging through My Week in Film, DVD Releases & Bondathon separately for visual enjoyment*; or for audio-only fans each of these vlogs will be compiled in the Movie Moxie Podcast. Listen to this weeks episode here.
  
• Hot Docs 2012: Hot Docs preview on last weeks podcast, plus reviews of G-Dog & Ballroom Dancer as well as the Hot Docs Awards
• Check out my 2012 Owned/Unseen List - I'm up to 3/20 seen!
  
• See my other vlogs this week: DVD Releases May 1 & 8, 2012 and The Bondathon: Dr. No
  

Up next week: Hoping to see and review of The Avengers, Dark Shadows and possibly more.