Category: 2010
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I didn’t know Submarine came from a novel going in. I didn’t know it came from the “Great Welsh Novel” until a few minutes ago. I was checking to see if the novel—written by Joe Dunthorne—was YA. Turns out it’s literary fiction, which makes the film adaptation, screenplay by director Ayoade, slightly more interesting, slightly…
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I don’t know much about “Doctor Who”’s casting history but I did happen across how this episode is Tennant’s last because he quit. So when he’s going through what seems like an eon of histrionics before becoming the new Doctor—you’ve never appreciated Christopher Eccleston’s exit more—which includes him whining about not wanting to leave…. He…
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The Perfect Host is clearly on a budget. It’s one of those carefully constructed on a budget movies, where you see the inside of the police station but never the outside and you can hear the other detectives, but it’s always just talky cops Nathaniel Parker and Joseph Will. They’re working a bank robbery, which…
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If you ever find yourself not believing in the idea that White people of wanting talent can fail upward, watch Jonah Hex. Every one of the principals from the film worked again when, based on the film as evidence, maybe John Malkovich should’ve gotten another job. Sure, Josh Brolin isn’t terrible in the lead, but…
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There’s a lot of fine direction in The King’s Speech. Hooper does exceedingly well when he’s showcasing lead Colin Firth’s acting or showing how Firth, who starts the film as Duke of York and ends it King of England, moves through the world as this sheltered, unawares babe. Of sorts. These successful sequences would stand…
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Let Me In is ponderously stylized. Director (and screenwriter) Reeves approaches the film–about a twelve year-old boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who befriends the new girl in his apartment complex, also ostensibly twelve years old. Chloë Grace Moretz is the girl. She’s not just a girl, she’s a vampire. Reeves shoots it kind of like “She’s a…
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Even the Rain has a particular narrative distance as it starts, then changes to another one a little later on. Director Bollaín doesn’t transition gradually between these two vantage points; she keeps the pacing of scenes and how they flow into each other, just from the new distance. The film has an ambitious narrative juxtapositioning…
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The best thing about Temple Grandin is Claire Danes’s performance. She even gets through the parts where she’s thirty playing fifteen. It’s a biopic, there a lot of flashbacks. Director Jackson tries to use a lot of visual transitions for them, but they really succeed because of the teleplay and the performances. To give some…
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Watching A Nightmare on Elm Street, I can’t believe remake director Bayer ever saw any of the original movies. Because he doesn’t even want to borrow the better techniques of those films. He instead goes with a thoughtless approach to the film. Specifically, the dream stuff. He doesn’t have any interest in it. Not just…
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Alice in Wonderland has a number of balls in the air at once and director Burton–though he does show a good sense of them each while in focus–can’t seem to bring them together successfully. The potentially unifying elements–like Danny Elfman’s score or Mia Wasikowska in the lead–both fall short. For whatever reason, Burton doesn’t have…
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There’s always something to be said for a new approach to a standard genre. The Silence is a murder mystery, kind of a cold case one, kind of not, kind of serial killer, kind of not. Director bo Odar tries really hard in the end to give the film a singular ending and he fails.…
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All-star commercial for New York’s Labyrinth Theater Company is intense, weird, hostile, and often wonderful. Lots of awesome performances, particularly from Sam Rockwell and Christopher Meloni. Streaming.Continue reading →
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The Gift is yet another “short film as demo reel”… only all it does is show director Rinsch’s inability to construct an acceptable four minute short. The first problem–not the biggest, just the first–is the bad composites. The CG is decent (rather good lighting on it, even), but the compositor doesn’t match it to the…
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Maybe DC did the whole “New 52” thing so they’d never have to address the terrible developments in Widening Gyre. I’d respect them for that motive. It’s just not a bad finish, with Smith killing off a familiar DC character, but a bad issue overall. Batman breaks into the Fortress of Solitude for a date…
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Motherland wasn’t made with a reference copy of Film Symbolism for Dummies handy. Director Appell apparently had a copy of Film Symbolism for Complete Freaking Morons on hand instead. It’s painful to watch, especially towards the end. Appell actually gets worse after aping the little girl in red from Schindler’s List. I didn’t know you…
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Given director Streitfeld’s poor choice of a fractured narrative, it’s hard to say what would make this adaptation of Golf in the Kingdom better. Someone other than Mason Gamble in the lead, however, would probably make it a little more tolerable. While her dialogue is severely overdone (except for the women, who get away with…
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If you happened across The Samurai of Ayothaya and missed the terrible opening expository narration, you might think you found an awesome martial arts movie about a bunch of Thai Freddie Mercury impersonators in a Battle Royale situation. Sadly, you did not. You instead found a terrible mix of a military thriller and a martial…
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Get Lamp is part history documentary, part modern examination, part something else. It changes throughout, which is only natural… director Sadofsky gives the viewer control of the documentary’s structure (but also offers a cruise controlled version). Lamp is an affectionate look at early computer games, specifically the text-based ones–so Zork, not King’s Quest. There’s a…
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Refuge isn’t so much pretentious as it is dumb. Writer-director Schmudde figures out a fairly nice narrative to turn in on itself as protagonist Barret Walz keeps travels to Iowa but gets nowhere. It’s Groundhog Day as shoe gaze, white guy angst. Wait, I think that phrase is an oxymoron. Walz is quite good in…
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Jackpot! is a fairy tale for violent misogynists; writer-director Ducret probably sells it mail order to convicts. Here’s the premise–New York City is infested with fetching young black women who trap successful black men by manipulating themselves into pregnancy. Luckily, these successful black men are able to call a lothario (an awful Anthony Laurent) who…
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Until about halfway through, I knew how to start talking Bedevilled. It was about a yuppie workaholic (Ji Seong-won) flipping out and going on a forced vacation. Only she goes to this remote island where she used to visit her grandfather as a kid. Instead of a vacation paradise (though the island is lovely), she…
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James Stokoe has such an interesting approach to foreshadowing I wonder if he even feels he utilizes the device. Around the midway point–maybe just a little earlier, but when Orc Stain‘s protagonist wakes up for the first time this issue–Stokoe makes sure the reader pays attention to something the protagonist notices. The protagonist even tells…
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Ah, the utterly useless director’s cut. Thank you, DVD. Having only seen The Expendables once, I’m not entirely sure what Stallone added for this version. The opening titles seem long and awkward (there’s now a montage introducing the team, which is even sillier since most of them disappear for the majority of the run time)…
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In the listless younger man, experienced older woman genre, Meet Monica Velour is a painfully obvious modernization (the older woman is a former porn star, the younger man is an… avid fan). I use the ellipses because Meet Monica Velour’s protagonist is the finest example of the stalkers of the eighties growing up to be…
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What a downer. Well, wait, I guess Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot is more of a measured downer. Tardi, adapting a novel, is decidedly distant from his characters. The finish might be tragic, but if the reader remembers he or she isn’t supposed to have cared particularly much for the characters in the…
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Sharfik should be amazing, but director Gazizova seems to think her audience is full of idiots. Until the last two minutes, the only bad thing about the short is the music. The music’s this terrible, melodramatic singing and it completely fails. The short’s otherwise so strong it doesn’t matter. It’s a simple story—a kid slowly…
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It’s Natural to Be Afraid is a series of fractured moments in the lives of two (or two and a half) characters. The short opens with two of them, Mark Drake and Mika Hockman, in a perplexing scene. For a while, it seems like director Doherty and writer Neil Fox are just doing an extended…
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Maternal Death by Coincidence is one of a series of mock documentaries about two Dutch morons in Africa. It’s unclear from the episode itself it’s part of a series. But finding out about its format, its part in a series, does slightly change my opinion of it. Coincidence succeeds because the public service announcement bit…
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The Other Guys ends with an animation explaining the financial bailout in terms of what it means to the average American (i.e. the viewer). It tangentially relates to the movie’s plot. It might be the “best” use of a mainstream film’s end credits ever. Someone will soon ruin it I’m sure. Otherwise, The Other Guys…
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Even with the annoying narration from Mike Patton (maybe director Moshe cast him because he’s a big Faith No More fan because Patton doesn’t narrate well), Bunraku is seamless. Moshe’s initial artistic impulse carries through. Things sometimes don’t work—Josh Hartnett’s character is supposed to be a drifter in the Western tradition, but his wardrobe seems…
The Stop Button 