Why Am I Suddenly Excited For Star Wars, Episode VII?
The Disney-Lucasfilm corporate fornication did not reach my ears immediately upon its occurrence, as I was huddling in the dark around a barrel fire, eating charred squirrel during the hurricane. But, once it did reach my ears, my initial response was an overwhelming… Mnuh? Guh? Eh. Whatever. Star Wars? Big part of my youth. As it was a part of the collective youth of many in my age range. The first trilogy was a fundamental narrative marker in our burgeoning personalities, for better or for worse. It left its fingerprint.... Read The Rest →
The Obligatory Dark Knight Rises Post
Great movie. As I get older, I have a harder and harder time appreciating four-color rock-em-sock-em fests like The Avengers (which I liked, before you yell at me) and for me the Nolan Batman run has been one where the superhero story has been upgraded to feel like it’s by adults, for adults. It doesn’t ignore the reality of what Batman is — it keeps the creepy bits where “rich dude dresses up like vigilante to defend city from psychopathic terrorists and criminals” fairly well intact. It doesn’t look away... Read The Rest →
Prometheus: In Which The Gods Of Plot Punish The Characters For Their Precious Agency
It is to my mind quite good -- it's beautiful, elegant, icy, and has some truly gut-churning scenes of body horror. Just the same, it's a film that misses its mark, but that's okay -- the mark was quite small and quite far and it was brave of them to shoot for it. I appreciate a film that aims for the bullseye and misses...
Go Ahead, Shoot The Baby
I've been watching a lot of film noir from the forties and fifties over at Noir City, the noir film festival going on this month at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, and I've noticed something that's been bothering me: There are a lot of happy endings. Seriously, what the fuck?
Sucker Punch: Lessons Learned
Sucker Punch is five kinds of awesome mixed with ten kinds of terrible. Is it a bad movie? No, probably not. Snyder can really direct and, when he has material to direct, it's incredible. Here, though, there's just not a lot of there there, as the saying goes. It's a bit too hollow, a bit too shallow, which ultimately starts to drain it of its fun. So much so it just gets tireless.
