Blunt Reviews Presents: Catfish (2010)

Is this a documentary? I honestly struggled to take the film seriously because there are such glaringly obvious blunders throughout that are difficult to look past. The details simply do not hang together, possibly due to poor editing, but either way it does not feel unscripted. What killed the film for me, aside from the fact it was pitched as an Alfred Hitchcock style thriller and turned out to be a handful of nothing, it was the trio making the film. They are irritating beyond belief, so I can’t engage in their story because I simply don’t care about them.

Blunt Reviews Presents: The Fighter (2010)

David O. Russell directs this big screen biopic of boxer Micky Ward and the various conflicts within his family during his rise to fame. What really kept this film glued together is the central performances. Mark Wahlberg is fine in the main role but it’s the supporting performances from Melissa Leo, Amy Adams and Christian Bale that add depth to the film. I admit I’m not really interested in sports or boxing films but this is well directed and successfully managed to grasp my attention. It’s not Million Dollar Baby by any rate, but it’s a solid piece of film.

Blunt Reviews Presents: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

If Tim Burton wants to have fancy dress parties with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter then fine, but we don’t need to see them. I love Burton as a filmmaker, but I want to slap him around the face with a shoe and tell him to snap out of his annoying new routine of making fucking awful films. This uninspired, needlessly bleak piece of rubbish serves as the perfect advert for short term memory loss caused by a serious head injury. Ultimately it slots perfectly into Burton’s back catalogue with the other rancid films he’s made post-Corpse Bride.

Blunt Reviews Presents: Up in the Air (2010)

It’s refreshing to see a genuinely funny comedy that stands as an impressive piece of film. The screenplay is really something special; written to be both subversive and relevant, but also with an appropriate amount of melancholia. The performances are as you would expect, with George Clooney playing roles similar to what we’ve already seen, while the supporting roles from Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga pull the film forwards. With a strong structure and impressive input from the director of photography the film is a smooth but detailed look into a modern and conflicted lifestyle.

Blunt Reviews Presents: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Remakes are always troublesome, but why would you choose to remake such a fantastic film? If this is what modern cinema audiences want, a badly made horror film void of any substance, then this film is truly groundbreaking, for it is the defining evidence to support the prophecy of many film critics that cinema is slowly dying. Director Samuel Bayer takes Wes Craven’s genius, cuts out the innards, blowtorches the carcass and then pisses on the remains. Congratulations to producer Michael Bay for another critical attack on modern cinema, and the public execution of a masterpiece. Fucking Moron.

Blunt Reviews Presents: Shutter Island (2010)

I admire Scorsese as a filmmaker and I think it was bold of him to make a chiller such as this, but it’s all over the place. The plot is too thin and lacks complexity, which results in the plot twists being visible from quite some distance, not to mention the god awful score diffusing the tension as opposed to creating it by just being loud nonsense. There’s nothing notable about the film that stands out. From the leading performances down to the directing and screenplay it’s all a bit mediocre and proves itself to be remarkably unremarkable.

Blunt Reviews Presents: True Grit (2010)

The Coen Brothers return to serious territory as they deliver one of the best modern western films since Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. Drawing inspiration from the original source material and the film from 1969 this is a solid western for modern audiences, but what’s best is the Coen Brothers ultimately leaving their mark and adding elements based on their own style. The cast is fantastic as one could expect, along with a phenomenal screenplay that accompanies such strong and memorable characters perfectly. The whole film has a dry, crisp feel as the period details are perfected and the genre mastered.