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Lord Tangent

Listed below are comments made by Lord Tangent between Friday, 9th October 2009 and Wednesday, 25th November 2009.

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The Serious Coens 3:36pm on 25 Nov 2009 A word in defence of Juno - it does have hipsterish problems, not limited to overly self-aware dialogue and a smug opening credit sequence, but the story's solid, the characters have depth and the performances from all concerned are rather good. Compared to some of the other humourless hipster mumblecore efforts out there, I think it stands up pretty well.

That conclude the case for the defence. You may now throw stones...
The Serious Coens 8:42pm on 24 Nov 2009 So they make films for themselves rather than some titular audience - I'm sure the same thing applies to most decent film makers, poets, artists, authors, musicians, etc. etc. I'm not denying your point, just suggesting that it's not as portentous as your blog post makes it out to be. In a nice way, obviously.
Farewell Edward Woodward 7:52pm on 20 Nov 2009 The 'Callan' film (rather that the TV series) was the first thing I ever saw him in, and I thought he was fantastic - sympathetic, violent, jaded, ambiguous and regretful all at the same time - a very English actor in a very English film.
Screening Room: Animation & Aardman 7:07pm on 19 Nov 2009 The worst are easy enough - 'Shark Tale' must be the absolute nadir of those tedious referential animations where we're all supposed to squeal with delight at their anachronistic or hideously misplaced pop-culture characterisations, 'Cars' was the worst Pixar film by light years, and anything touched by Don Bluth immediately dissolves into a sugary vomitous mass.

As for the best, 'Wall-E', 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Corpse Bride' are the ones that first come to mind, though I'd put in a good word for animated shorts, especially classic forties 'Tom and Jerry' or fifties 'Road Runner'.
Call of Civic Duty 2 5:33pm on 17 Nov 2009 It's always a good rule of thumb to be wary of anything the suspiciously well-fed Keith Vaz has to say. Still, it probably doesn't pay to get too upset about the machinations of a fame-hungry MP, especially over what you have pointed out is a yet another rehash of a thirty year old bugbear. Send dear old Vaz some Horlicks and a laminated picture of himself to cuddle and he'll quieten down soon enough.
The ten-second vampire movie 8:05pm on 28 Oct 2009 Glad to see psychfursfan83 mention the '79 version of Salem's Lot - admittedly it's a TV mini-series rather than a proper movie, but I still think in Mr Barlow it's got one of the all-time best vampires, a properly nasty piece of work who really can't be mistaken for a teen heart-throb. And it's got James Mason being creepy too.
The second second time around 07:35am on 28 Oct 2009 Glad to see The Prestige mentioned a couple of times here - it's a clever film that gets cleverer each time I see it
Trailer Treachery 03:13am on 22 Oct 2009 Inglourious Bedsteads takes the biscuit for me - the trailer really pushed the 'Dirty Dozen' angle, suggesting that the film would be, well, almost anything other than what it was - a bloated ocean of dialogue that drowned out pretty much everything else. I'm not saying there weren't things of merit in there, but thanks to the trailer I wasn't in the right mood to swallow them. So to speak.
The Revisitations of Doctor Kermode 6:09pm on 15 Oct 2009 Starship Troopers - first time out I thought it not much more than pseudo-fascistic drivel that positively annoyed me; second time around it occurred to me that I had spectacularly missed the point, and as such thought it a much better, cleverer film.

There was a gap of around 10 years between my viewings - leaving aside allowances for the callow idiocy of youth, how we see films, and what we see in them, must change as we do, and usually not for the better - I'm sure most people would have to think hard to come up with films they liked more second time around, whereas those that fail to live up to one's rosy memories seem all too common.
When paying higher taxes really pays off 3:50pm on 09 Oct 2009 I think you do the French a disservice - they know rather a lot about art over there, so I don't fancy dear old Emin's chances of being clasped to too many Gallic bosoms with anything like the celebration she seems to imagine would be her due. I think she'd be hit in Albania, though.

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