When recalling The Da Vinci Code in my review of Angels and Demons, some of you felt my comments about the star of that earier film, as well as such works as Amelie, Lost Seamen, and Priceless, was not entirely appropriate. Please allow me to take this opportunity to clarify my position.
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Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the museum, Britain's favourite entertainer who so far has negotiated an admirable path through Hollywood's minefield choosing to appear mainly in such smart outings as Ghost Town is back with Ben Stiller in cash cow sequel Night at the Museum 2. Is 'e 'avin a laugh?
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More from you on the important stuff of the day such as why I am not in Cannes, the merits of papal action men in Angels and Demons and the greatest small picture houses in the country...
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He turned Spiderman into a dollar factory of epic proportions and with Drag Me to Hell shows he can knock up a proper modern horror flick just as well as anyone. Yet once upon a time, back in the '80s when he and a few chums splattered the brilliant, hilarious (and if you haven't yet seen it not-to-be-missed) Evil Dead across the cinema screens of the United Kingdom, Sam Raimi was considered a corrupting influence, a purveyor of the "video nasty," far from the highly regarded, Hollywood institution he is today. Yet it is in those very earliest moments of his rise to glory that the great responsibility of great power was first revealed.
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After a trawl through the gloomy depths of The Da Vinci Code, Tom Hanks and Ron Howard drag Ewan MacGregor back into the Vatican-baiting imagination of Dan Brown with Angels and Demons, and if you want to know the fundamental and possibly paradigm-redefining point of difference between the two movies, then get a move on.
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The memes that cannot die are back including how to get a free DVD of a movie before it's even released at the cinema and the amazing possibilities for 3D TV on the Wii, plus a loving tribute to a fabulous local picture house.
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Simon Mayo and myself were delighted to win the Speech Gold Award at last night's Sony Awards for our radio movie review show (five live, 3pm till 4pm every Friday) and now all we have to resolve is the small matter of whose mantelpiece it sits on. I have a view on that.
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Following their Sony Radio Awards success, a surprise guest visits Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode.
Go to Mark on 5 Live for more reviews and film debate.
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Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode celebrate their success at the 2009 Sonys where they picked up the Speech Award.
Go to Mark on 5 Live for more reviews and film debate.
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As promised, a kilobyte or two of the blog is hereby given over to someone whose opinion on a film dares to differ from my own, plus a reminder that before the relaunch of the Starship Enterprise there was a sci-fi franchise that went from TV to big screen and then straight into my heart.
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Given the increasingly likely probability that you have just arrived from an
alternative suburb of the multiverse here's a heads up: the venerable Star Trek
franchise has returned with a head-spinning vigour that is the movie equivalent
of an injection of monkey hormones. Replacing William Shatner as the arrogant,
dynamic, heroic Captain Kirk is young Chris Pine, yet hanging over this film is
another possible universe where another man is the true captain of the Starship
Enterprise...
Clips courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
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Mark thinks the latest Kirk and Spock offering is a new frontier for Star Trek.
Go to Mark on 5 Live for more reviews and film debate.
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Most low budget film makers go digital, but by insisting on using only 35 mm
stock as one of their (almost Dogme-95-style) self-imposed film-making
disciplines, co-directors Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor lent their Civic Life
Project series of shorts a uniquely cinematic sensiblity. With their new
feature, Helen, about what happens when a child in care is asked to play the
part of a murdered girl in a crime reconstruction, these same techniques are
used to address issues of identity in ways that are disturbing, moving and
recall some of my very favourite films. For an interview with Joe and Christine
go to
BBC Film Network.
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Is pink a colour or a'state of mind'? Mark ponders the simple philosophy of Hannah Montana.
Go to Mark on 5 Live for more reviews and film debate.
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Last week's observation that the responsibility for solving movie piracy lies
with a movie industry that is mired in the last century and not with the
audience that is living in the present one seems to have struck a pulsing nerve
with you. Your own highly intelligent and creative thoughts on the matter
include improving picture house protocol, the ineptitude of 3D as a theatre
audience building strategy and the deliciously calumnous suggestion that leaking
X Men Origins: Wolverine online was all part of a fiendish Hollywood conspiracy,
and thus in the spirit of online democracy, ladies and gentlemen I humbly
relinquish Kermode Uncut to you...
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