Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
A friend of mine is setting up a movie website over the weekend and he asked me to write a review of a film that, in my opinion, has been ruthlessly over-looked by critics and cinema audiences alike.
He's very eager for material and I know that there's a lot of immensely talented writers on here, so if you would like to get something online somewhere, here's your chance. Simple brief: 250-300 words, but you can't review a film that's already popular. So no 'Star Wars'. Fire away here and I'll get him to let me know which ones he'd like to publish. Here's my effort.
There are times in a gentleman's life when he has had his fill of poignancy and gravitas. When he has taken in too many painstakingly captured landscapes and over-dosed on haunting soliloquies. For these moments when class has no place, for when quality is of the least importance, for when the only thing bigger than the bangs should be the bucks that were spent igniting them, there is 'Starship Troopers'.
When the finest films in history are catalogued, Paul Verhoeven's 1998 tour de force will be lucky to warrant more than a passing mention. It's big, but at first glance, it's certainly not clever. Essentially, it's 'The O.C', set in space and juxtaposed against a vicious interplanetary war between mankind and gigantic carnivorous insects. So far, so Citizen Kane.
Verhoeven's films are noted, not just for his obsession with a future of mixed changing rooms, but also for their grim dystopian flourishes; the macabre news reports of Robocop, the extras in Total Recall. Starship Troopers is in much the same vein and, amusingly, was seized upon by both pro and anti-war campaigners upon its release. It is, it has to be said, astonishingly gory, but at the same time it's so gloriously gung-ho that even Ghandi would have to force himself not to enjoy the opening battle scenes. They're fighting giant insects, what's not to like?
Loosely based on the Robert Heinlein book of the same name, you can take this film in two ways. You can see it as a witty, post-modern pastiche of the new world order, crammed with wry, subversive in-jokes, or you can accept it as nearly two hours of high-octane, blood-thirsty madness. Either way, it is as essential to any boy's DVD collection as Predator, Rambo and Star Wars.
He's very eager for material and I know that there's a lot of immensely talented writers on here, so if you would like to get something online somewhere, here's your chance. Simple brief: 250-300 words, but you can't review a film that's already popular. So no 'Star Wars'. Fire away here and I'll get him to let me know which ones he'd like to publish. Here's my effort.
There are times in a gentleman's life when he has had his fill of poignancy and gravitas. When he has taken in too many painstakingly captured landscapes and over-dosed on haunting soliloquies. For these moments when class has no place, for when quality is of the least importance, for when the only thing bigger than the bangs should be the bucks that were spent igniting them, there is 'Starship Troopers'.
When the finest films in history are catalogued, Paul Verhoeven's 1998 tour de force will be lucky to warrant more than a passing mention. It's big, but at first glance, it's certainly not clever. Essentially, it's 'The O.C', set in space and juxtaposed against a vicious interplanetary war between mankind and gigantic carnivorous insects. So far, so Citizen Kane.
Verhoeven's films are noted, not just for his obsession with a future of mixed changing rooms, but also for their grim dystopian flourishes; the macabre news reports of Robocop, the extras in Total Recall. Starship Troopers is in much the same vein and, amusingly, was seized upon by both pro and anti-war campaigners upon its release. It is, it has to be said, astonishingly gory, but at the same time it's so gloriously gung-ho that even Ghandi would have to force himself not to enjoy the opening battle scenes. They're fighting giant insects, what's not to like?
Loosely based on the Robert Heinlein book of the same name, you can take this film in two ways. You can see it as a witty, post-modern pastiche of the new world order, crammed with wry, subversive in-jokes, or you can accept it as nearly two hours of high-octane, blood-thirsty madness. Either way, it is as essential to any boy's DVD collection as Predator, Rambo and Star Wars.
