Film Reviews Archives

October 2, 2015October 5, 2015

Five Best Tattooed Film Characters

Our guest blogger is hobbyist film and TV series reviewer and writer Harry Casey-Woodward:

5 best film characters with tattoos

5) Name: Jack Sparrow (sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow)
Played by: Johnny Depp
In: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003
Tattoo: A sparrow on his wrist

If you’re on the run (or sail rather) from the Royal Navy or the terrible clutches of the East India trading company, surely you wouldn’t get a certain avian tattoo on your forearm that would give a clue to your name?

4) Name: Leonard
Played by: Guy Pearce
In: Memento, 2000
Tattoo: Daily reminders all over his body

Here’s proof to your disapproving elders that tattoos can be useful. In a more interesting movie by Christopher Nolan than his Dark Knight films, Guy Pearce plays a chap searching for his wife’s murderer while suffering from short term memory loss. To combat this, he tattoos of all the things he needs to remember like clues, who he can trust and I guess daily reminders onto his body. However useful and painful the process, it’s best to keep those shopping lists short. I guess it’s quite impractical stripping off in a supermarket just to check you’ve got everything.

3) Name: Lisbeth Salander
Played by: Noomi Rapace
In: Män som hatar kvinnor or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009
Tattoo: A dragon on her back, in case you were wondering.

Lisbeth’s huge tattoo on her delicate frame is a sign of the power and strength she felt she lacked as grew up watching her father beat her mother. She is a world class hacker and all round computer goddess, but she is a troubled heroine. She is ruled legally incompetent as a child and lives under the care of a legal guardian, initially the kind hearted Holger Palmgren. When Holger suffers a stroke, he is replaced by Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson). Nils is a heinous man to say the least. He abuses his position to extort sexual favours from Lisbeth and eventually rapes her. She catches the entire incident on film and threatens to ruin him unless he gives her full control of her life – and uses a tattoo gun to write across his belly “Jag är ett sadistiskt svin och en våldtäktsman” – I am a sadistic pig and a rapist. Lisbeth has everything her tattoo embodies – triumph over adversity and strength from pain.

2) Name: Francis Dolarhyde aka the Tooth Fairy
Played by: Ralph Fiennes
In: Red Dragon, 2002
Tattoo: Also a dragon on his back.

Probably one of the greatest tattoo identity crises. In this prequel to Silence of the Lambs, Ralph Fiennes (who has an arsenal of terrifying performances including a Nazi, a gangster and a psychotic megalomaniac wizard) portrays a serial killer who has a William Blake Biblical dragon painting tattooed all over his back. This is not just because he likes it but because he wants to become it. In his most deluded scene, he displays his mighty sexy dragon body before a captured Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is clearly terrified at the amount of days, agony and expenditure that went into that ink.

1) Name: Harry Powell
Played by: Robert Mitchum
In: The Night of the Hunter, 1955
Tattoo: The words ‘love’ and ‘hate’ tattooed on his knuckles.

For marrying a widow to get her ex-husband’s money, killing her then stalking her runaway children across the country, this devilish preacher surely wins for being the creepiest inked character in this classic film noir. His most sinister feature besides his eerie singing are the striking tattoos on his hands. One hand bears the word ‘love’, the other ‘hate’. He uses these to physically represent the struggle between the two emotions in a one-man arm wrestle. What they may actually signify is the duality of his personality, a criminal masquerading as a Christian, and perhaps in conservative 1950s America a man with tattoos was surely disreputable? Whatever the meaning behind the tattoos (if there is any, for they might be his tenth and meaning stopped mattering a while ago) and even though they are basic compared to the other tattoos in this list, they are instantly iconic and a bizarre and original character trait for 1950s cinema.

All images from IMDB

August 28, 2015

Puddings in Film

Our guest blogger is hobbyist film and TV series reviewer and writer Harry Casey-Woodward:

The Great British Bake Off is ensnaring everyone in its doughy tendrils and in spirit of all things cake, I’ve been thinking about some of the best scenes in cinematic history involving puds. So in no particular order of preference, here are my choices. I apologise in advance for Matilda not making the list.

Inglorious Basterds (2009) Apple Strudel

Apple Strudel

Who wouldn’t accept an invitation to eat apple strudel? Perhaps not if the invitation came from the “Jewhunter” or Nazi Colonel Hans Landa played by Christoph Waltz and not if you were a French Jewish woman named Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), whose family Hans Landa had slaughtered. As much as you want to hate him, Hans has all the charm and vocal fluency of a true Frenchman as he politely interrogates Shosanna about her cinema and her background. He also orders her some apple strudel and a glass of milk, which is what he was drinking when he rooted her family out. When the strudel arrives, he realises he forgot the cream. He orders Shosanna in French to wait for the cream in such an absurd comical manner it’s kind of scary. When the cream arrives, there is a hush and an intimate close up of the cream being spooned onto the strudel. This moment gives me goose bumps, not just because it makes me drool but for the quiet moment in such a tense scene. The same thing happens when Hans takes a moment to chew and the sound of his teeth working on the soft flaky pastry is so crisp and clear it makes my hair stand up. Pudding can cause tension.

The Shining (1980) Chocolate ice cream

Ice Cream

One of the spookiest yet most touching scenes involving a dessert, or dessert residue as the bowls the characters talk over look empty. Young Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd), whose dad has just started the caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel for the winter, has been invited to have ice cream with the hotel chef Mr. Hallorann (Scatman Crothers). The only thing sinister about this is that Mr. Hallorann invited Danny with his mind (probably the scariest invite for ice cream on film). Hallorann then goes on to explain that they can communicate mentally thanks to the special psychic gift they both possess. Danny says it comes from a little boy called Tony who lives inside his mouth. Thus begins a rather delicate conversation in which Mr. Hallorann attempts to explain in child’s words the hotel’s dark past that clings to its walls much as the ice cream residue clings to their bowls, before giving a stern warning not to visit a certain room. The audience, having already been informed of the hotel’s violent history, is given a fresh curiosity. Heavy stuff to discuss over ice cream. What increases the impact of this scene is, like in Inglorious Basterds, there is a lack of soundtrack and background noise, so the softness and menace of the atmosphere is heightened.

Jurassic Park (1993) Jelly

Jelly

Remember, if you’re ever scoffing puddings with your sister/companion and they’re eating jelly, keep an eye on them in case they stare suddenly over your shoulder and start shaking so much the jelly wobbles on their spoon like an overweight belly dancer. Then would be a good time to scarper as they may have just seen a dinosaur’s silhouette, or a shadow-saurus.

Natural Born Killers (1994) Key lime pie

Key lime pie

The opening scene of this carnage fest sees our star-crossed psychopathic lovers Mickey and Mallory (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) stop off at a diner on their cross-country murder spree. Mickey orders key lime pie while Mallory dances to the juke box. She is harassed by two hot-blooded rednecks and the scene explodes in violent hallucinogenic mayhem, ending in Mallory playing eeny-miny-mo with the two remaining survivors, and it all started with a slice of pie. This scene sets the mood for the rest of the film, as does the sharp but sweet, squishy and sickly green nature of the key lime pie.

Chocolat (2000)… Chocolate, of course

Chocolate

It is night in a sleepy French town, and a Catholic priest played by Alfred Molina freaks out during Lent and sabotages the delicious window display of his most hated chocolaterie. In the midst of his chocolate-smashing frenzy, a fragment brushes his lips and within seconds he’s cramming every chocolate sculpture between his teeth, consumed by a lust for sweetness as if he’s fallen into the lap of some chocolaty prostitute, before breaking down in tears and falling asleep. He is woken in the morning, smothered in brown residue amongst the wreckage, by the concerned chocolatier. We feel for you Father, we feel for you.

August 22, 2015

Film Review: Kingsman

Our guest blogger is hobbyist film and TV series reviewer and writer Harry Casey-Woodward. On th-ink.co.uk Harry will be writing a series of posts in which he will be sharing his opinions on things he has watched. In this post Harry will be reviewing Kingsman…

Kingsman: the Secret Service, 2015, cert 15, dir Matthew Vaughn, 2/5

I am not a fan of spy films. I feel the genre has been over done a tad. As fun as they can be, there’s only so much I can take of gadgets, cars and smug, woman-exploiting heroes armed with cheesy one-liners. If there’s a brand of action thrillers I fall for, it’s westerns and yes they can be horribly clichéd too. But the genre has produced a handful of genuinely good films, about human drama and conflict playing on the vast stage of the American historical landscape. Whereas most spy films, with the exception of those based on Le Carre, don’t have much going on under the shiny cars, pretty actors and explosions.

I enjoy the silliness of James Bond and I like the grittiness of the new ones. I’d just rather watch a more human, even grittier hero than someone who always looks good, always gets the girl and always wins.

Kingsman does indulge in spy movie clichés, but somehow it didn’t annoy me. Now on DVD and blu-ray, the plot follows a young man named Gary or ‘Eggsy’ (played by Taron Egerton), who is offered an escape from his inner-city life and his violent stepdad by an old friend of his deceased father’s: Harry Hart (probably Colin Firth’s best role) a gentleman tailor who actually works for a private spy agency called the Kingsmen, run by Michael Caine. Under the guidance of Harry and another agent Merlin (Mark Strong), Eggsy is indoctrinated into the intense training programme to become a Kingsman agent. Meanwhile, a wealthy techno-wizard named Valentine (played by Samuel L. Jackson with a lisp) has a scary plan to solve mankind’s damage of the environment with SIM cards.

You can tell this film was directed by Matthew Vaughn. I didn’t like Layer Cake (mainly because it had Daniel Craig trying to swear) but I liked the Kickass films because they were… kickass. In fact the Kingsman film has a lot in common with Kickass. Both are about teenagers finding their heroism through excessive violence. Kingsman does it better than Kickass, as in Eggsy is a more likeable underdog character than the nerdy Kickass hero. The plot is also more interesting if farfetched, a tribute to the old Bond movies. There’s even a scene where Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson are reminiscing about them.

The best thing about this film, however, is that it maintains a hard, violent edge as well as being a humorous farce, with dramatic stunts and intense, stylized action. Actually maybe the action is too intense and stylized. I do enjoy stylized violence but Kingsman does it to the point where it’s no longer realistic, which I feel is more important. There’s also a scene which is basically a massacre shot like an action scene and set to the guitar solo from ‘Free Bird’. I felt a bit uncomfortable that such gratuitous slaughter was set up like we were supposed to enjoy it.

The other problem I have with the film is that while it strives to be a decent spy flick rather than just a goofy spoof of Bond like Jonny English, it still indulges in some of the worst aspects of the genre. For example, a Swedish princess crudely propositions amoral relations with Eggsy and of course he accepts with suave confidence. I heaved a frustrated sigh when the same ‘hero-has-spontaneous-sex-with-random-floozy’ ending was used just to needlessly big up the hero and we’re expected to cheer him on for being such a cad.

To be fair, the film doesn’t deal with subtlety. While the recent Bond films are trying to appeal to an older, serious audience Kingsman is definitely a spy movie for teens of today, with lashings of excessive violence, language and chavs turned spies. But there is still something for the Bond lovers, with sharp-dressed gentleman spies wreaking havoc with pens, umbrellas and a dash of patriotism. The whole thing is a rollercoaster of guilty fun, paying tribute to the classic spy formulas while delivering a harder, darker and funnier breed of action thriller. Plus the hero has a pug.

Do you agree with Harry? What did you think of Kingsman?

Images from IMDB