Film Review: Five Cold Films

Our resident film reviewer is writer Harry Casey-Woodward who will be sharing his opinions on things he has watched…

Since the weather at the moment is rather grim, I’ve had a think about what handful of films mirror the British winter chill and would be horrific to be starring in, not just for the cold.

The Hateful Eight, 2016, cert 18, dir Quentin Tarantino

eeee

I haven’t seen The Revenant yet, otherwise by the sound of the conditions depicted it would surely get a place here. But the Hateful Eight is another western coinciding nicely with the British winter. Except it’s depicting a Wyoming winter so naturally the weather is a bit more extreme. As in, everything is smothered in snow and looks like a Christmas card, except the very opposite of Christmas cheer and goodwill happens in the film. I just feel sorry for that stagecoach driver stuck on top of his coach the whole time while his passengers are sheltered below him, and the guy forced to walk naked in the snow. Yes that does happen. All in all, this film does a great attempt at showing how cold the American west could get and just how desirable a pot of fresh hot coffee would have been.

The Shining, 1980, cert 18, dir Stanley Kubrick

shining

I know most of the film’s action takes place indoors, but the ominous presence of winter just lurking outside is maintained throughout. Even at the beginning, the hotel manager is warning Jack Torrance how severe the winter can get, what damage it can cause to the hotel and what damage it caused to the mind of the last caretaker who, suffering allegedly from ‘cabin fever’, murdered his family. All the other staff members are hurrying to leave before the roads are snowed in. So while the Torrances are trying to have a relaxed, normal time (besides the ghosts, the kid’s powers of prophecy and daddy’s slide into psychosis), the raging winter outside is cutting down telephone wires, shutting down roads and generally making it difficult for the Torrances to escape or be rescued when things start going down the toilet. Plus Jack Torrance freezing to death outside looks a chilly way to go.

The Thing, 1982, cert 18, dir John Carpenter 

thething

For one thing, this film is set in Antarctica, the coldest and remotest place you can get. Not only that, but you’re stuck in a science base with a bunch of experts and one bearded alcoholic pilot played by Kurt Russell, so you could die of boredom as well as cold. Unfortunately, a shape-shifting alien is unleashed from the ice and starts taking over everyone like a parasite that’s really good at impressions. Cue some traumatic 80s prosthetics of human bodies tearing apart and sprouting new alien appendages, but at least the gushing bodily fluids that flood this film might keep you warm. Funnily enough, season one of X-Files did their own tribute/rip-off of this film in one episode about parasitic aliens set in an Antarctic science base, which looked equally cold.

Dead Snow, 2009, cert 18, dir Tommy Wirkola 

thesnow

Let’s bring some world cinema in. Of course, the term does suggest sophistication, not students getting slaughtered by Nazi zombies. Try telling that to HMV, however, whose ‘world cinema’ sections appear to be mostly stocked of all the nasty pulp foreign language films. Anyway, it does look pretty cold in this particular Norwegian snowbound shocker. The constant running away and the brain-bashing of undead fascists would keep you warm though, as would being soaked in the copious amounts of spilled blood from you and your friends. I thought the most unpleasantly cold-looking moments in the film were in the outdoor toilet next to the students’ wood cabin. How did two characters have sex in there? It’s bad enough with the zombies pulling you down the poop chute afterwards.

Die Another Day, 2002, cert 12, dir Lee Tamahori 

dieee

Honestly I had a hard time thinking of things for this list, but this movie sure looks chilly, especially since the second half is set in some ice palace in the Arctic. They must have had some magical central heating system where the guests didn’t freeze but the palace didn’t melt around them. James Bond even managed to persuade Rosamund Pike to lose her clothes in some icy bedroom. There are many cold scenes throughout the Bond franchise (as in temperature not the acting). I haven’t seen Spectre yet but there is another Pierce Brosnan flick called The World is not Enough, the predecessor to Die Another Day, where Bond and Sophie Marceau lose some baddies in a ski chase but end up buried under an avalanche. Luckily Bond’s array of gadgets includes a bubble that pops up around them and shields them from the evil snow. This doesn’t stop Marceau from having a panic attack and Bond has to calm down the silly woman. At least he didn’t do it the Sean Connery way and slap her.

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.

king

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.

king1

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