WHAT I’VE BEEN WATCHING

What we do in the Shadows (2014)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

What we do in the Shadows - movie review - FOEC

What we do in the Shadows - movie review - Green Medal - FOEC

Vampires stalk the streets of Wellington in search of fun, friendship and virgins in the second feature film collaboration from Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi, which finds a documentary film crew capturing the less glamorous side of life after death.

Written & Directed by Jermaine Clement & Taika Waititi / Starring Jermaine Clement, Taiki Waititi, Jonathan Brugh, Cori Gonzalez-Macauer / Cinematography by Richard Bluck, D.J. Stipsen / Music by Plan 9 / Film Editing by Tom Eagles, Yana Gorskaya, Jonathan Woodford-Robinson / Production by Funny or Die, New Zealand Film Commission Read More

Borgman (2013)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

Borgman 2013 review FOEC

Borgman 2013 review Green Medal FOECAffluent Dutch townies become the victims of an unholy force of justice in Alex van Warmerdam’s insidious black comedy. A hugely enjoyable tease from start to finish, Borgman almost overcomes its own obscurity but never amounts to more than the sum of its parts.

Written & Directed by Alex van Warmerdam / Starring Jan Bijvoet, Hadewych Minis, Jeroen Perceval / Cinematography by Tom Erisman / Music by Vincent van Warmerdam / Editing by Job ter Burg / Production by Graniet Film  Read More

The Babadook (2014)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

The-Babadook-FOEC-movie-review

The-Babadook-FOEC-movie-review-medalJennifer Kent’s nerve jangling feature debut is the most textured, exiting and surprising horror movie of recent years; an expressionistic psychological odyssey rich in metaphor, humour and the sound of things going bump, bump, bump in the night.

Written & Directed by Jennifer Kent / Starring Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Benjamin Winspear, Hayley McElhinney, Barbara West / Cinematography by Radek Ladczuk / Music by Simon Njoo / Production by Causeway Films Read More

The Guest (2014)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

The Guest 2014-FOEC-review

The-Guest-2014-FOEC-review-worth a lookThe shadow of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) looms large over Adam Winguard’s and Simon Barrett’s stylish and often amusing wanton killfest. Dan Stevens is wilfully cast against type as a menacing blue-eyed killing machine gone to ground in the home of a bereaved small-town family.

Directed by Adam Winguard / Written by Simon Barrett / Starring Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, Sheila Kelly, Leland Orser, Lance Reddick / Cinematography by Robby Baumgartner / Music by Steve Moore / Production by HanWay Films, Snoot Entertainment Read More

The Expendables 3 (2014)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

The Expendables 3-review-FOEC The-Expendables-3-rating-worth-a-lookIt is with a sense of surprise and relief that I salute The Expendables 3 as a half-decent movie, which justifies giving the ultimate-action-movie-mix-tape gimmick another spin for the sake of getting it right.

Directed by Patrick Hughes / Written by Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt, Sylvester Stallone/ Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Wesley Snipes, Mel Gibson, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Arnold Schwarznegger, Harrison Ford / Cinematography by Peter Menzies Jr. / Music by Brian Tyler / Production by Nu Image, Millennium Films Read More

A Touch of Sin (2013)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

a-touch-of-sin-medal-FOEC-Over the Christmas break I helped my Dad begin his own blog, A Touch of Film, as an outlet for the reams of film reviews that he turns out each month. I’ve reposted his first published review, a semi-collaborative effort between both of us that was written up from our extensive discussions of Jia Zhangke’s direct and exquisitely composed Cannes prize-winner.

Enjoy!

A Touch of Film

A_touch_of_sin_04_web_0★★★★★

Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin is a shockingly bleak and sad tale of ordinary Chinese lives blighted by catastrophe in a rapidly changing modern world, giving the audience a good drubbing and with only a glimmer of hope at the end.

Written and directed Jia Zhangke, China/Japan, 2013

View original post 1,459 more words

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

Captain-America-The-Winter-Soldier-review-FOEC

captain america the winter soldier-silver medal-FOEC-reviewCaptain America and Black Widow must outrun the daggers tearing at the cloaks of super spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Russo brothers’ exhilarating throwback to the action blockbusters of the nineties.

Directed by Anthony & Joe Russo / Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely / Starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson / Cinematography by Trent Opaloch / Music by Henry Jackman / Production by Marvel Studios Read More

The Deep Blue Sea (2011)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

This is one of three film reviews that I wrote for an online magazine that never launched so I’ve decided to publish here instead.

The Deep Blue Sea movie review

Deep-Blue-Sea-movie-reviewA flood of emotion pours from Terence Davies’ bold, earnest, idiosyncratic return to feature film drama, providing a showcase for the full extent of Rachel Weisz’ dramatic presence. 

Written & Directed by Terence Davies / Based on the play by Terence Rattigan / Starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale / Cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister / Production by Film4, Artificial Eye, UK Film Council

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Metro Manila (2013)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

Metro-Manila movie review

Metro Manila movie review

Despite accolades from the likes of Sundance and BIFA, Sean Ellis’ second feature is a rather turgid affair, trudging slowly and with little incident through life in the slums of Metro Manila. 

Directed by Sean Ellis / Written by Sean Ellis & Frank E. Flowers / Starring Jake Macapagal, John Arcilla, Althea Vega / Cinematography by Sean Ellis / Music by Robin Foster / Production by Chocolate Frog Films Read More

Stoker (2013)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

Stoker movie review

stoker movie review

Park Chan-wook tickles and tantalises his fans and admirers with a leftfield, and quintessentially Park-ian, take on the American gothic sub-genre. Come for names on the poster, stay for the art direction… 

Directed by Park Chan-wook / Written by Wentworth Miller / Starring Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman / Cinematography by Chung Chung-hoon / Music by Clint Mansell / Production by Scott Free Productions, Indian Paintbrush Read More

Rush (2013)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

Rush movie review

Rush movie reviewRon Howard delivers a uniquely dualistic take on the scrappy underdog story that pits this reviewer’s affection for Chris Hemsworth’s splendid hair against this reviewer’s awe at Daniel Brühl’s casual dominance of every scene.

Directed by Ron Howard / Written by Peter Morgan / Starring Daniel Brühl, Chris Hemsworth, Alexandra Maria Lara, Olivia Wilde / Cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle / Music by Hans Zimmer / Production by Working Title, Revolution Films

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Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

Posted on by Sandy Connell

Berberian Sound Studio movie review

Berberian Sound Studio movie review

Peter Strickland’s second feature follows the ill-fated process of a nebbish sound engineer as he goes down the rabbit hole in a Giallo-style exploration of the horror the horror of making horror movies.

Written & Directed by Peter Strickland / Starring Toby Jones, Fatma Mohamed, Cosimo Fusco, Antonio Mancino / Cinematography by Nicolas D. Knowland / Music by Broadcast / Production by Film4, Warp X

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WHAT I'VE BEEN WATCHING

Grading films with the Medal System

Image | Posted on by Sandy Connell

12 grades for movies...

Grades should never be obligatory when reviewing films but they can be helpful, especially since UK cinemas now see upwards of 600 cinematic releases every year – a fact that should be considered when arguing the positive and negative influences of critics’ tendencies towards Best Of The Year lists. Given my own fondness for lists as a way of recommending movies and organising my own thoughts about the cinematic year or decade, grades are a comfortable and provocative tool.

For my reviews I’ve created a system based more on how much I would recommend the film in question to anyone and how much I would wish to celebrate its artistic achievements. This somehow seems more representative of my taste and less definitive than more impersonal A-F grades or stars or marks out of ten. And so I’ll briefly explain the system below: Read More

FOEC RETURNS!

Posted on by Sandy Connell

Films-of-Every-Colour-2014

In 2012 Chinese censorship made WordPress inaccessible to those without a VPN, which led me to find a new home for FOEC on Tumblr. But, after a long period of inactivity, I’ve decided to return to posting FOEC reviews and articles to WordPress, where I intend to be writing and publishing again on a regular basis.

As this is essentially a re-start for FOEC, I’ll be reposting several reviews that I initially published to Tumblr and continuing to fill-up the blog with reviews of what I’ve been watching and some specific articles, including new entries in the 13 Treasures column that I started back in 2011. One significant change from my previous posts will be the creation of a grading system, something I rejected in the past but have since found to be an increasingly useful tool for organising my thoughts on the hundreds of films and TV shows clamouring for space inside my tangled synapses.

As before, FOEC is primarily dedicated to analysing and celebrating contemporary films of the 21st Century but I will be making the occasional forays into cinema’s past with scattered reviews and broader articles.

As always, please share and comment on what you read. Half the fun of blogging anything is in engaging with the responses of equally passionate people and if you’re reading this then you’re likely to be just as passionate a film nerd as I am.

FILM!