A Profound Journey
Est. 1995
Travel, technology, reviews, projects and diary — newest first.
The Hughes brothers return with a sun-bleached post-apocalyptic western that critics find thin and I find quietly gripping. Denzel Washington carries it, the world earns its silence, and on mood and rewatchability it lands well above the consensus. 8/10.
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Guy Ritchie drags Conan Doyle's detective off the armchair and into the bareknuckle ring, and Robert Downey Jr gives him a manic charm that carries the whole thing. Not the Holmes of the deerstalker, but a thoroughly entertaining one. 8/10.
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James Cameron returns from a twelve-year absence with an old story and a brand new planet. The plot is borrowed, the world is not, and on sheer immersion it is close to the top of the genre. 9/10.
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Terry Gilliam loses his leading man halfway through and turns the disaster into the design. The story is a tangle, the images are inexhaustible, and on sheer invention it earns its keep. 8/10.
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A first-time director, a Peter Jackson cheque, and a mothership parked over Johannesburg. District 9 smuggles a furious apartheid allegory inside a mock-documentary action film, and the trick mostly comes off. 8/10.
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Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq bomb-disposal thriller is the most acclaimed war film of the year, and I came away cold. Brilliantly shot, well acted, and for me an exhausting watch I have no wish to repeat. 5/10.
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Tony Scott remakes a 1974 New York hostage thriller as a loud, sweaty showdown between Denzel Washington's tired dispatcher and John Travolta's ranting villain. The original was leaner, but this one moves. 7.5/10.
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The sixth Potter film slows down, darkens the palette and lets its teenagers be teenagers. It is the most handsome film in the series so far and one of the best. 8/10.
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Duncan Jones makes his directing debut with a small, patient lunar science fiction film built around one actor and one idea. It is quiet, intelligent and beautifully made, and Sam Rockwell holds it together almost alone. 7.5/10.
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The franchise finally crosses into the future war it has been promising since 1984, and trades time-travel for boots in the ash. The reviews are brutal and the heart is thinner than it should be, but as a piece of post-apocalyptic spectacle it works better than its reputation. 7/10.
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