eccooper
Joined Oct 2012
Welcome to the new profile
Our updates are still in development. While the previous version of the profile is no longer accessible, we're actively working on improvements, and some of the missing features will be returning soon! Stay tuned for their return. In the meantime, the Ratings Analysis is still available on our iOS and Android apps, found on the profile page. To view your Rating Distribution(s) by Year and Genre, please refer to our new Help guide.
Badges2
To learn how to earn badges, go to the badges help page.
Reviews5
eccooper's rating
Created in the 1970s on a diet of anti-heroes and Clint Eastwood's grizzled chin, Judge Joe Dredd patrols Mega City One dispensing justice as judge, jury and sometimes overly creative executioner. With the first film outing in 1995 an overstyled (to quote Clint from Heartbreak Ridge) 'clusterfuck'; this version had to distinguish itself from that Jean Paul Gaultier festival to hook back the fans.
Urban, starring as the main man, managed to do this well before release with the reveal that Dredd does in fact keep his helmet on. In a society that seems to revel in what gets taken off it's refreshing to see art that values restraint, reserve and the beauty of understatement.
This reserve does not extend to the violence. This is Mega City One as the spotty youth to which I belonged imagined it. It hurts the eye to watch the misery and cheap life flow through the cracks in the radiation-stained concrete one minute and experience the magical drug- filled bliss the next.
Through this world of pitiful contradiction Dredd strides like a constant. The man's presence is such that as his dialogue becomes ever more truncated, his impact increases to the extent he can deliver one liners without a word.
Alongside him is rookie judge Anderson (Thirlby): psychic and damaged, she is a perfect counterpoint for Dredd. With an earnest desire to 'make a difference' the struggle to reconcile her vision of justice with the absolutes of the world of 2000AD gives the film a depth that takes it beyond actioner and into social and moral commentary.
With a plot centred on Anderson's first and possibly last day on the job, her character is set directly against the deliciously deviant Lena Hedley as drug lord Ma Ma. Almost a mirror to each other, both characters are scarred by the nightmare future and pushed either side of the law.
Dredd occupies the centre: implacable, unreadable. Like Harry Callaghan before him, if we ever asked him why he did what he did, day after day, year after year, well, we'd never believe him if he told us.
Urban, starring as the main man, managed to do this well before release with the reveal that Dredd does in fact keep his helmet on. In a society that seems to revel in what gets taken off it's refreshing to see art that values restraint, reserve and the beauty of understatement.
This reserve does not extend to the violence. This is Mega City One as the spotty youth to which I belonged imagined it. It hurts the eye to watch the misery and cheap life flow through the cracks in the radiation-stained concrete one minute and experience the magical drug- filled bliss the next.
Through this world of pitiful contradiction Dredd strides like a constant. The man's presence is such that as his dialogue becomes ever more truncated, his impact increases to the extent he can deliver one liners without a word.
Alongside him is rookie judge Anderson (Thirlby): psychic and damaged, she is a perfect counterpoint for Dredd. With an earnest desire to 'make a difference' the struggle to reconcile her vision of justice with the absolutes of the world of 2000AD gives the film a depth that takes it beyond actioner and into social and moral commentary.
With a plot centred on Anderson's first and possibly last day on the job, her character is set directly against the deliciously deviant Lena Hedley as drug lord Ma Ma. Almost a mirror to each other, both characters are scarred by the nightmare future and pushed either side of the law.
Dredd occupies the centre: implacable, unreadable. Like Harry Callaghan before him, if we ever asked him why he did what he did, day after day, year after year, well, we'd never believe him if he told us.
A film with time travelling Goblin Rabbits trying to steal a pipe that will
.I don't know what. This is Asian cinema at its best. A story built on eastern story telling. Young buck, wise old master, humorous sidekick (who may or may not be a dog of indeterminate gender) and a love interest with guts and gumption when needed most.
Following the apprentice Wizard Woochi (Don Wong-Kan) and his shape shifting Dogberry-esque friend Chorangyi and their hunt for the magic that will make Woochi's name and Chorangyi human.
Fight scenes of inventiveness that take the stylistic quirks of the later Matrix films and make them great, comedic timing and watch out for the reality of magic in the second act (21st century) as we find out what would really happen if you had to seek out a magic painting at two in the morning in downtown Pyongyang.
Betrayal, magic, drunken Taoist gods who can't seem to get anything right and a downbeat upbeat ending that wraps the film up in the brilliance of the eponymous hero's own imagination.
This is a film for teenagers, lovers of story and people who don't take themselves seriously.
Big bag of popcorn.
Following the apprentice Wizard Woochi (Don Wong-Kan) and his shape shifting Dogberry-esque friend Chorangyi and their hunt for the magic that will make Woochi's name and Chorangyi human.
Fight scenes of inventiveness that take the stylistic quirks of the later Matrix films and make them great, comedic timing and watch out for the reality of magic in the second act (21st century) as we find out what would really happen if you had to seek out a magic painting at two in the morning in downtown Pyongyang.
Betrayal, magic, drunken Taoist gods who can't seem to get anything right and a downbeat upbeat ending that wraps the film up in the brilliance of the eponymous hero's own imagination.
This is a film for teenagers, lovers of story and people who don't take themselves seriously.
Big bag of popcorn.
OK. So I'm 6'10" and when dressed reasonably still resemble a badly shaved bear. I could not sneak in to Magic Mike, I could not duck under the covers, pull up a hoodie or hide under a parasol (not manly I know, but I was looking for an absurdist third).
I walked in with my head held high and in full understanding that by going to see Channing – is that a tree ? - Tatum for two hours I was paying my wife back for all the films I had dragged her to see over the last year (yes that includes Prometheus).
What I had failed to realise was three things. That Magic Mike is directed by Steven Soderbergh (yes the Director of 'Solaris' and producer of 'From a Scanner Darkly'), that the actors (Tatum included) can actually dance and pulled off some brilliant moves, and that it was, rather than being a film about the sausage fest that is the 'ladies night', a film about what it means to be a man. My contention is that Magic Mike is not a film for the ladies at all: it is squarely a film for the guys and one of my best of the year. (Suck on it Ridley.)
Set in Tampa, it follows part-time roofer and full-time stripper 'Magic' Mike (Channing Tatum) and new guy Adam (I'm sure actor Alex Pettyfer is a Brit, if so his yank accent is impeccable) and their experiences in the clubs. But where other directors would have either gone all 'Chicago' or worse 'Dogme', Soderbergh hits the fine line that produces an examination of what is most important in life, up there with films like 'Lost in Translation' and 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'. More than this he explores what it means to be a man in the modern and traditional senses – where it chimes with the very best of modern cinema including the sublime 'Drive' and the Manic 13 Assassins.
I will say no more other than I recommend it for what it is, a well- directed, well-acted piece of drama that left me feeling lifted.
Take your wife this weekend!
I walked in with my head held high and in full understanding that by going to see Channing – is that a tree ? - Tatum for two hours I was paying my wife back for all the films I had dragged her to see over the last year (yes that includes Prometheus).
What I had failed to realise was three things. That Magic Mike is directed by Steven Soderbergh (yes the Director of 'Solaris' and producer of 'From a Scanner Darkly'), that the actors (Tatum included) can actually dance and pulled off some brilliant moves, and that it was, rather than being a film about the sausage fest that is the 'ladies night', a film about what it means to be a man. My contention is that Magic Mike is not a film for the ladies at all: it is squarely a film for the guys and one of my best of the year. (Suck on it Ridley.)
Set in Tampa, it follows part-time roofer and full-time stripper 'Magic' Mike (Channing Tatum) and new guy Adam (I'm sure actor Alex Pettyfer is a Brit, if so his yank accent is impeccable) and their experiences in the clubs. But where other directors would have either gone all 'Chicago' or worse 'Dogme', Soderbergh hits the fine line that produces an examination of what is most important in life, up there with films like 'Lost in Translation' and 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'. More than this he explores what it means to be a man in the modern and traditional senses – where it chimes with the very best of modern cinema including the sublime 'Drive' and the Manic 13 Assassins.
I will say no more other than I recommend it for what it is, a well- directed, well-acted piece of drama that left me feeling lifted.
Take your wife this weekend!