Alright gang? So this week, fresh off of the Sci Fi, B Movie-inspired jaunt through Viking Norway that was Outlander, I’ve got another film lined up for this weekend.
This one will likely be familiar to a few of you as it had a decent marketing budget, an a-list star and made some noise on arrival in 2010.
I remember it being reviewed pretty badly in Empire magazine (which I think is generally a little too generous with its scores most of the time) and indeed elsewhere. Furthermore, the dvd case proudly displays that proud Pound Shop Flix trope: good reviews from pornographic magazines (Nuts gave it 4 stars!). However, a quick google seems to suggest that other places (including Roger Ebert.com (!)) scored it well, so we will just have to see what’s what for ourselves. I don’t think it too bold to say that this Blog will give the definitive last word on the matter.*
All of this points towards a watchable, maybe even good, film. It’s star is usually pretty safe hands in this kind of fare too, so I’m more or less looking forward to it.
In terms of clues I’ll give you this: It’s a Spy film, and it ain’t called ‘Pepper’.
For now though, some other stuff you might find interesting:
There’s a film coming in 2021 (god how are we nearly on the 2020s!?). Pitch-wise they had me at ‘Jessica Chastain and Lupita N’yongo are spies.’ If this blog is still around in 2021,someone remind me to watch this as a bonus flick: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/09/jessica-chastain-lupita-nyongo-led-spy-thriller-35.html
(Aditionally it’s worth reading up on the linked stuff in the article about Fan Bingbing, Chinese star who is also in the film and was the subject of a brief apparent disappearance).
Vanity Fair recently sat down with The RZA, mastermind and founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan to discuss the Kung-Fu films that the group were inspired by, referenced and sampled. This is pretty much a venn diagram of my interests, but even the casual observer will find it interesting I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ67KyHX-cY
Have a good few days and see you Sunday readers!
-Tom
*This is a joke, to be clear.
Pound Shop Flix 