Rewind - For a Few Dollars More

Part of the Fistful of Dollars trilogy, for a Few Dollars more is a classic spaghetti western movie. You've got to love a character who actually has no name and who plays that character? Yes Clint Eastwood does and all by speaking as few words as humanly possible. It's the second move in the trilogy and as such you don’t have all the characters yet that are revealed in finale The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. You only have the good played by Clint eastwood, and the bad Eagle eyes played by Lee Van Cleef.

The story is based on these two bounty hunters who end up after one paycheque, this results in a standoff, a scuffle and a lightweight partnership between the two to catch the criminals involved and make the biggest pay day of their lives. It’s directed by the legendary Sergio leone who only ever made a handful of movie and it features an Ennico Morricone musical score. Your eyes and your ears are in for a stylish treat. For a few dollars more is a slow paced movie that takes its time introducing its characters and how the story is going to unfold, all the while though it’s very gripping thanks to the interesting camera shots, short and abrupt dialogue and excellent music.

If you haven’t seen any of the Fistful of Dollar movies you might be put off by the age of the movie or the quality of the footage and sound effects which aren’t quite up to today’s standards. But this doesn’t stop the movie being highly entertaining and the style has influenced all kinds of modern time directors which is testament to how strong a film this was and still is. Well worth adding to your movie collection or staying up late to watch if you see it on TV even if you dont like western movies.

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Rewind - Pitch Black

Pitch Black turned up out of the blue in 2000 with one of the best trailers i've seen to date. It was minimal, visually stark and left you wanting more and wanting to know what happened to the alcohol fuelled flame blowing man as he was surrounded in the darkness.

Pitch Black follows the story of a passenger space vessel that is carrying a variety of passengers from traders and collectors to criminals and bounty hunters. When the vessel loses its flight path its spirals and crashes on a strange planet where things are exactly what they seem to be. The film was the launching vehicle for Vin deissel playing a great anti hero character Riddick. Name name is the eye candy who plays the vessels pilot who wises up to the situation she finds herself in,. Cole Hauser plays Johns the bounty hunter. These 3 characters form the main trio and they are a good match, they all bounce well off each other are believable and the acting is above par in what is essentially a b style movie. The rest of the supporting actors play their roles as expected you have a holy man and a typically English gent who collects art and antiques and wine.

Sure it takes ideas from other movies and the low budget shows at certain points, but what you do get is an interesting character driven film that explores some basic ideas and loyalties which and aslo you get a strange alien planet, an eclipse and some interesting ideas. If you like science fiction movies you'll more than likely find this enjoyable and its a far better movie than its sequel.

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Rewind - High Fidelity

High Fidelity is a movie based on a Nick Hornby novel starring John Cusack. The film follows Rob Gordon played by John Cusask and is a perfect movie for him he does this role so well. I did enjoy the movie but I wasn’t sure if I would intially not the kind of movie i would normally go out of my way to see. There are no explosions, no guns, no kung fu and no car chases, so what is there for the average movie goer. Well it’s all about relationships just like the other well known book to film adaptation from Hornby was, About a Boy. it’s very similar to that movie in content and idea but High Fidelity is much cooler because it has a music store in it and not Hugh grant playing a guitar!

As we follow Gordon around we see his music store where he employs various music fanatics including Jack Black who is hard to watch in this role after you have seen him do bigger things. When Gorden breaks up with with his girl friend starts to re evalueate his life and question why every things is going wonky, he revisits all of his previous failed relationships. Wow sounds like an upbeat film right? So alongside a member of core characters who evolve and grow which is the main theme in this movie is relationships and learning as a person, its serious stuff I tell you! it also features some characters we never get to see in person in the movie. I always like this tactic in movies and tv shows.

So yes it’s a decent movie, about people. their lives, their record collections, their relationships, the ups and downs, their growth and their journeys. Oh and it has some funny moments too, quite a lot in fact squished in between all the relationship analysis, with some good performances some nice cameos and some great top 5 lists

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Rewind - Brotherhood of the Wolf

Brotherhood of the wolf is a movie that slipped under my radar completely until a couple of years after its release when i read about it, then went out and bought the dvd. Since then ive reccomended it to many people. Brotherhood of the Wolf, Pact de Coups in its native language is a French movie based on a mythical story/fairytale/piece of history from the 18th century. It follows the story of a explorer & philosopher Chevalier de Fronsac played by Samuel Le Bihan who along with his companion Mani played by Mark dascoes, who go to the french town of name to investigate a series of murder that the locals cannot solve themselves. The locals provide the information they have and inform Fronsac about the beast. Previously the towns guardsmen have failed to capture the beast and Fronsac now employs his methods of tracking the killer.

This movie blew me away the first time, visually it looks rich, it also blends many styles and ideas and carries them all along at a subtle pace that allows you be immersed in the world. Support comes from Monica Bellluci and Vincent Cassel and all round performances are very good Belluci is especially good. Brotherhood of the Wolf is French so that is the spoken language, the dubbing is okay, and if you dont like it you always have the option of subtitles.

So dark rich visuals, period costumes, olde world settings, martial arts with a blending of styles, solid performances, murder and politics are all embrolied up in a movie which is rather lengthy yet has a large number of really standout scenes that break the movie up. The story wont withstand intense scrunity and some elements are almost brought to the point where they could suspend disbelief but this is far outweighed by a film the like of which you wont have seen very often, interesting fact its the highest grossing french movie to date.

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Rewind - John Carpenter's The Thing

Rewind - Movies worth watching

John Carpenter's the Thing dates back to 1982, i first watched it over 10 years ago on tv and it stuck in my head then and does now. This was down to its atmosphere sense of paranoia, split loyalties between the cast, some rather good special effects for the time and a very cool Antartic setting.

We join the story in the Antarctic where an American research station is the home of the films main characters, including John Macready played by Kurt Russel. Their routine is upset by a Norweigan helicopter that flies over their camp chasing a husky dog, the helicopter lands and the Norweigans attempt to shoot the dog and are greeted by Macready and the Americans outside in the snow at their research station. This leads to a stray bullet hitting one of the Americans and as the dogs run away the norweigans are intent on killing it, throwing a grenade which ends up dropping out of the hand and into the vicinity of the parked Norweigan helicopter which then blows up. The remaining Norweigan is shot dead by name name another of the American crew for fear of their own safety and the dog is taken inside. The story continues with the Americans trying to find out why the Norweigans were intent on killing the dog and why they had seeminly lost their sense, reason and calm.

The Americans who man the Antartarctic station in The Thing are a mixed bunch of people who seem bored, annoyed and restless with their situation, well at least until the tedium is broken by the events after the dog chase. All the crew are given some character and as the movie unfolds we see the previous loyalties and minor niggles between the crew becoming more frayed and stressed, your in the action with them compelled to watch. They dont know who to trust and you wont know who to trust either.

The special effects in The Thing are dated sure, but there still pretty good, and while some things in the movie have dated badly like the computers, some thing havent due to the location. Notably the Music score is done by Erico Mocoroni, who has done various classic music scores and this one features prominently even though you may not notice it adding to the atmosphere. Well worth a look if you see it appear on tv or at the dvd store, its a John Carpenter classic, tense exciting and you dont know who to root for.

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Rewind - The Italian Job

Rewind - Movies worth watching

In 2003 a reworking of the 1967 movie 'The Italian Job' was released. So 30 years and a much loved classic movie that is on tv most years at some point gets an update with a mainly american cast. Your not going to get any quotes as good from the new one as the origional movie had, and im sure you know the quotes i mean so i wont mention them. The story is only really linked too by the fact its a heist of gold that starts in italy and involves mini's as the getaway vehicles. The ensemble cast in the remake dont actually do a bad job, you have Mark Whalberg heading the cast for the good guys, well anti heros really, their still theives, Charlize Theron plays the cool and calm safe cracker and the rest of the cast includes Seth Green, Donald Sutherland, Mos Def, Ed Norton and Jason Stratham supporting. The movie starts off about the gold but soon gets personal when friendships are crossed and lines are drawn, now its definately personal, this leads to some nice build ups and payoffs through the movie.

Some great product placement is layed out with copious shots of the Mini's in action, but unless your venemously against the look of the car your not going to be too bothered, all the scenes are fun and good to watch, they probably helped the success of the Mini in the States.

Dont go into the movie expecting a carbon copy of the origional and youll enjoy it more, its a fun little movie which does exactly what you expect and holds up for the majority of the running time. Interesting news is that a sequel is reportedly in the works, titled 'the Brazilian job' due out around 2008, with most of the cast returning.

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