It’s not exactly the case that Empire of the Sun is Steven Spielberg’s most “divisive” movie, in any useful sense of that word (that’s almost certainly A.I. Artificial Intelligence). It’s something a little bit weirder than that: a movie that nobody really pointedly dislikes, unless they’re already suspicious of the director’s tendency towards sentimental manipulation, but only a small number of people have much of an opinion about beyond a […]
In an ironic twist that could only be seen coming by everybody, the film with the extravagantly notorious reputation – the film that was protested right out of theaters in one of the few times such a trick actually worked for the morally outraged protestors – ended up generating so much interest that, instead of being buried and forgotten, it kicked off a sequel to capitalise on the human animal’s […]
The battled-hardened fan of genre films learns quickly how to sift the good bits and pieces out of otherwise mediocre project; it is unlikely that one would else become a genre fan. And here’s an absolutely perfect example, Reign of Fire from 2002: there are some very fine individual elements, but is mostly bog-standard post-apocalypse survival adventure, but the concept underlying the story is so ridiculously strong that the whole […]
I had many expectations, and no expectations for The Dark Knight Rises, but I can say with absolute certainty that I was never even remotely prepared for this: that it would remind me, of all things, of a 1921 D.W. Griffith picture. Orphans of the Storm, to be precise, a story of the French Revolution that acts pretty much like you’d expect a Griffith melodrama to except for the title […]
This review is based upon the 135-minute cut of the film released to theaters in January, 2006. An earlier review of this film can be found here. After ending his 20-year sabbatical from motion pictures with 1998’s The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick upped his game something fierce. It only took a scant seven years for him to follow up that picture with a languid historical romance – “romance” in […]
Best PictureThe King’s Speech Best DirectorTom Hooper, The King’s Speech Best ActorColin Firth, The King’s Speech Best ActressNatalie Portman, Black Swan Best Supporting ActorChristian Bale, The Fighter Best Supporting Actress Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit Won: Melissa Leo, The Fighter Best Adapted ScreenplayThe Social Network, by Aaron Sorkin Best Original ScreenplayThe King’s Speech, by David Seidler Best Cinematography True Grit (Roger Deakins) Won: Inception (Wally Pfister) Best EditingThe Social Network (Angus […]
It’s that time of year again: Oscar weekend! If I were a brave man, I’d have gotten these published more than three days before the ceremony, but I wanted, among other things, to see as many nominated films as possible, and only just wrapped up the documentary films yesterday. Thinking about using my predictions to win your party pool? I wouldn’t – last year I had a fairly excellent 20/24 […]
Rather than lard up the front page with redundant posts, I’m going to add my thoughts about today’s announcement – available here – to my now completely useless predictions post. New thoughts are in red. I went 82/105 with my predictions (39/45 in the Big Eight), plus another 11 (4) where my first alternate got nominated. This is by a huge margin my best year ever, and proof, I think, […]
There’s a something about boxing pictures; a certain movieish quality to them that’s not equaled by any of the more popular sports (has there ever been a truly great football film? or hockey story? Only baseball has come anywhere close to replicating the cinematic durability of boxing, and then typically as the background to a story rather than as the centerpiece). It is, I think, that boxing is relatively unique […]
After completing The Piano, Jane Campion was at what you might call a bit of a crossroads. The story goes that she’d been wanting to make that film for virtually her entire career; and it took her hardly any time to earn the clout to make it just the way she wanted. The result was one of the most well-regarded films of its decade, the recipient of a Palme d’Or, […]
The first thing I must get off my chest: if Public Enemies demonstrates anything, it’s that Michael Mann’s infatuation with high-definition video is becoming quite diabolical. When he used digital cameras to shoot Collateral, it made sense and it worked tremendously well; when he did the same for Miami Vice, it at the very least made sense, though it kind of failed a lot. But in his latest feature (which, […]
When a young, cash-strapped filmmaker named James Cameron started writing a screenplay about a diner waitress being chased by a murderous cyborg from the future, he probably didn’t expect to be launching a durable tent-pole franchise that would last (so far) 25 years past that first movie’s debut. But when The Terminator became a massive hit for its relative tiny budget, a sequel became an inevitability. Still, Cameron had the […]
