Ichi the Killer (2001)

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It's interesting to see how desensitised we've become in just over a decade. When Ichi the Killer (Japanese title: Koroshiya Ichi) was initially released, it was banned in several countries and was released after strict, heavy edits were performed in others. In 2013, I, an 18 year-old who looks his age, walked into a shop in Melbourne, Australia and bought an unedited director's cut of the film without being asked for ID. When I watched the film, while I certainly found it extremely violent and, at times, quite uncomfortable, it never even crossed my mind that this movie would have stirred up any controversy upon its release. While I don't think society's growing tolerance for ultraviolence ruined the film for me at all, it would have been fascinating to have watched it while living in the context of the values of the year 2001.

World War Z (2013)

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Once again, it's been a while. I'm bad, I know. I was actually going to release this review the day after World War Z came out, but I just never got around to finishing it. I'm not sure if it's even playing in cinemas anymore.

Whether you've read the book this was based on will strongly affect your reaction to this film. It could be argued that that's a bad thing and that this should be examined as stand-alone from the book. That's a completely legitimate argument, but I'm afraid I disagree.

Les Misérables (2012) - Mini Review

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I went into Les Mis cautiously optimistic. On the one hand it won pretty much every Golden Globe award, but on the other hand it's a classical period-piece musical set in France with a primarily non-American cast directed by the guy that did The King's Speech, so of course it won those awards. I'd just seen Silver Linings Playbook a few days prior, so I was excited to be surprised again by a film of a generally low-quality genre. To put it simply, Les Mis didn't exactly do that for me.

Cosmopolis (2012)

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I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad idea to review Cosmopolis right after having finally overhauled this blog. It’s by no means a mainstream film, and my opinion is sort of controversial. Or maybe that’s a good thing. We’ll see.

The Hunger Games (2012)

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Before I begin this review, I'd like to make it clear that I had read all 3 books in the Hunger Games trilogy before I saw the movie. I do not believe that an adaptation should try to mirror whatever it is based on. It can be as identical or loosely-based or somewhere in-between as it likes, as long as it can be understood without any knowledge of the original material. However, I generally believe that the adaptation should not be exactly the same as the original, as a change in medium almost always requires changes in the text for consistent quality to exist. I ask you to read this review with this in mind, as I will be criticising the film with this perspective. This will be the case with any future reviews of adaptations also. So, let's review The Hunger Games!

I came into The Hunger Games expecting a mediocre film. I saw it a few weeks after it was released, and had heard a lot of things that didn't sound promising. Having said that, I was still excited to some degree, being a fan of the books (the first one in particular), and was interested in seeing the story come to life in a new format.