Movie night date – 17/07/19. Post date – 24/07/19.
Another last minute blog post before the next movie night…I really got to get better. In my own defence, it has been a busy week and I’m starting to feel a little exhausted. Don’t blame me if I take next week off to rest. But last week’s movies were…albeit, a little lack lustre on terms of blood then I was expecting/remembered, but then again, there are a lot of bloody films, literally and slang wise. This week’s movies were the 1992 film ‘Reservoir Dogs’ by Quintin Tarantino, followed by a special version of the 2017 film ‘Logan’ by James Mangold.
Reservoir Dogs – 1992 – Quentin Tarantino – 99 Mins
‘Reservoir Dogs’ has been a recommendation on my list for a long time for a multitude of reasons. I need to see more Quentin Tarantino films; the only ones I feel like I have seen are ‘Pulp Fiction’, both of the ‘Kill Bill’s, and bits and pieces of ‘Django Unchained’. On top of that, I have been recommended this one because of the nicknames of the ‘crew’ in the film. All being named after colours was a funny thing I was recommended about this film when I was studying graphic design. Regardless, this movie was not what I expected it to be. I was expecting a straight forward movie, but the twists and turns this movie took me on were incredibly interesting. It never showed the actual event, which gave the air of mystery as to the outcome of the plot. THEN it goes and gives you a huge answer in the middle and it still managed to keep my interest afterwards. Props to this movie; say what you will about Quentin Tarantino, he made a good simple movie here.
For a starting point and a place I generally like to start, I really was interested in the cast. The only one off the bat I recognised was Steve Buscemi. It took me a while, but eventually I found where I recognised him from; ‘Spy Kids 2: The Island Of Lost Dreams’, and the ‘Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over’. He was the crazy doctor guy! ‘Spy Kids 2’ was one of the few movies growing up we had on DVD for some absurd reason, so I watched that, watched the first one, and then went on to the third one and loved the series. Fourth one was quite the let down, but that’s just me. Poor Stallone…anyway! The cast interested me here when I looked at them. Harvey Keitel was “The Wolf” in ‘Pulp Fiction’. Tim Roth was from ‘The Incredible Hulk’…while not a great movie, a memorable role as Emil Blonsky. The rest I didn’t really know from anything, but they worked very well in their roles.
The soundtrack for the movie is very good too. Another reason I decided on this movie was because when I heard ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ by Stealers Wheel I bought it on iTunes from the album of this movie. Very good soundtrack indeed. I intend to look into it more. While I don’t think I have seen any Martin Scorsese movies, I hear he does movies that like jumping around the timeline and this movie made me think of that with how it is set up. Definitely a thinking movie; I wouldn’t recommend this one as a relax and watch. I had to focus on what was being said. I liked it but I wouldn’t say it was a favourite of mine. Solid movie though.
Logan – 2017 – James Mangold – 137 Mins
‘Logan’ I saw in theatres when I was studying in Christchurch with my flatmates and I loved it. As a comic book nerdy person (I won’t admit to full nerdom yet; there are far more nerdy than me) I like comic book based movies, but it gets too predictable. ‘The Amazing Spiderman 2’ wasn’t all that for me because as soon as you get Green Goblin and Gwen Stacey together, you kinda know where it’s going and ruins the surprise. This movie however was a good one for basis and making it adapt and work as something new. On top of that, they released the version of the movie that I watched: ‘Logan Noir’. The same movie but in black and white. I really really enjoyed rewatching it like that and would highly recommend it. I don’t know why but if I had to guess…I’d say that maybe it’s a case of having less focus on colour, you get to just watch the movie and appreciate sound just as much.
So back to the way it differs from the comics. Firstly, addressing the elephant in the room of ‘What happened to the X-Men?’ While it’s not 100% set, Professor X is having seizures due to dementia and unintentionally freezing people from moving and slowly killing them as the seizure passes. In the film you briefly hear the radio say that what happens in the movie is similar to what happened in Westchester, so basically you can guess that Professor X had one of these seizures in his school in Westchester and killed the students. The comic book equivalent I believe the movie is based on is when Mysterio (probably know-ish from ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’) tricks Wolverine into killing the X-Men, thinking that they were villains…which is very al a “Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe Again”. The idea of this film was also probably born from the more recent comic series about Old Man Logan. The series is rather different to the movie, as it includes an inbred family of Hulks and a blind Hawkeye, but still…a basis none the less.
I really do like X-23 in this film. I don’t know her comic book wise so much but every iteration I’ve ever seen is an adult looking female. Dafne Keen plays her role as a young mutant made using Wolverine DNA incredibly. She plays so well off of Hugh Jackman, considering she doesn’t speak for a large portion of her time on screen from the beginning. Hugh Jackman is…well Hugh Jackman. Love him. They definitely play into being a R-rated movie a lot with unnecessary things like the boobs flash from the hens night Wolverine limo drives for and some of the swearing but I mean…Wolverine has always been a a roughish “go fuck yourself” kinda ‘hero’ so it suits him well, and with Professor X getting dementia it makes sense. I’ve certainly heard my grandmother swear more in her angry moods with her dementia. Anyway…overall? Love it, even more so in black and white.
Closing Thoughts
Really, the blood in them aren’t that bad. I’m absolutely sure I could find more bloody movies. Eventually I will watch ‘Psycho’, as it is a classic and has that cool trivia about the blood in the shower, and some thing else I’ve seen that’s gruesome or has blood loads of blood…maybe ‘Equilibrium’…anyway, I’m gonna go watch my new movies. May as well tell you. I am gonna watch ‘Primer’ followed by ‘The Adjustment Bureau’. Ok…
Wednesday Night Classics & Favourites With Liam! 