Category: 2011
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It’s amazing how much mileage Drive gets out of its soundtrack–not Cliff Martinez, though he does a great Tangerine Dream impression, but the licensed songs from Kavinsky and College. They deserve opening titles billing. Drive is an eighties L.A. crime thriller with a slight seventies sensibility and some ultra-violence. It’s unclear why director Winding Refn…
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Unknown is not a bad continental thriller. Liam Neeson is an American scientist in Berlin who wakes from a coma to find no one remembers him. As often happens in these situations, he finds himself a pretty sidekick (Diane Kruger) and a sympathetic native (Bruno Ganz) who try to help him unravel the mystery. The…
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The Lincoln Lawyer is—in addition to being, besides the cast, a great pilot for a cable series—a standard legal thriller. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a new one of these, probably because there are so many decent old ones to go through. Nothing in the film is a particular revelation, which might explain…
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Carey’s resolution is unexpected. It’s sort of celebratory and life affirming (and shows he and Gross could easily spin-off titles from Unwritten) but it also has the series’s first big fight scene in a while. And it’s a comic book fight scene. While all the detours into literature (Dickens, Moby-Dick), one doesn’t often think of…
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Spaltro tries to do a lot with Things I Don’t Understand. The film starts with confrontational narration from protagonist Molly Ryman. The first twenty minutes feel like an extended trailer rather than the film itself, establishing Ryman as an unlikable, insincere egotist. It turns out there’s a logic to the first person exposition, but it…
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The Code starts with an extremely funny one liner. It’s maybe the most inspired one liner of its kind and with such a high achievement, the rest is undoubtedly in trouble. Daylon Walton and Tamara Voss are the unfortunate horror film couple, necking in the woods, when the monsters appear. Except it’s not just one…
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While The Artist is a silent film about the silent film era, it quickly moves into the talking era. Probably in the first third of the film. Hazanavicius technically engages the transition a little–a dream sequence for protagonist Jean Dujardin–but for the majority of the film, it’s set in the late thirties and still told…
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Billjohn’s back. Heck yeah. I’ve been missing Billjohn and Bunn and Hurtt reveal he’s back in the first couple pages this issue. This issue finishes the “Bound” arc and shows how complicated Bunn’s plotting is on The Sixth Gun. While nothing big happened–except Drake’s disappearance–the reader learns a great deal about Becky and Gord. Bunn…
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I can see now why Bunn put all the action at the beginning of this arc. It’s not about action, it’s about the calm following the action. For example, the scenes with the most action this issue are Gord’s flashbacks. Except it’s not exciting Western action, it’s the terrible things Gord went through. And it’s…
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Anything after last issue was going to be a letdown and, while this issue isn’t as strong, Bunn and Hurtt are being very deliberate and careful. They’re slowly revealing the past of Gord and Becky. The beauty of The Sixth Gun being a supernatural Western is Bunn doesn’t have to use flashbacks. Instead, he gets…
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Darn that Bunn. After his first semi-weak (for Sixth Gun) issue I can remember, he comes back with an utterly outstanding one. This issue concentrates entirely on the life of the giant mummy, who either is going to be a new major character or Bunn is just flexing his writing skills. It’s a Western gothic;…
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The issue ends with a very peculiar turn of events. So much so the issue feels incomplete, like Bunn forgot to resolve something. He changes up Sixth Gun’s status quo in the second issue of an arc… it just feels funny. The issue’s pacing is also funny. It’s an all-action issue (but none of those…
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Is there anything not to love about this comic book? I mean, it ends with this beautifully paced reveal of the big villain–and I quote–a “giant mummy.” In the Old West. It’s just fantastic how Bunn and Hurtt pull off these fantastical reveals and make them work perfectly. Speaking of Hurtt, this issue features some…
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Of the Seth Rogen films I’ve seen—those he’s written, I mean—The Green Hornet is the weakest. It’s only partially Rogen and cowriter Evan Goldberg’s fault. The concept does not present them with the best opportunities. At its most amusing, it’s usually Rogen and costar Jay Chou bickering. Rogen and Goldberg’s strength is when the film…
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Half this issue is spent with Scarlett on a mission to burgle the castle. The other half is Walrus, McDunk and the prince trying to find the quartet suitable transport. Things do not go well for either set of characters. What’s particularly nice about this issue of Snarked, besides Langridge’s wonderful panels (one of his…
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I find Small Fry to be a little confusing. Not just in the narrative, though the plot also has an incredibly big hole, but the approach in general. It’s a Toy Story short, only MacLane gives it enough plot it could be a feature, not just a short. A “Happy Meal” version of Buzz Lightyear…
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The Muppets is confused. The screenplay from Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller oscillates between being this lame story about Segel and his brother, a Muppet named Walter (indistinctly performed by Peter Linz), and his girlfriend (Amy Adams) and a better story of the Muppets reuniting. The better story is, unfortunately, not exactly good. There are…
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Photographs might be an exquisite little short about grief, but directors Manrique and Clogher have some truly terrible ideas and it ruins the short. Their protagonist is a lonely old woman. She finds a Polaroid camera and goes around taking pictures of herself. She’s the only person in the film and the rest of the…
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Chase, in Prose has a couple big problems. First, Matthew Weston’s photography is terrible. Prose is shot on DV and Weston has no idea how to compensate for the format. There’s also a constant shakiness, which might be some poor style choice of director Jones’s. Second problem is believing lead Byron Asher is a world…
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It’s amazing how a British actor, one who isn’t even good, is still leagues better than a mediocre American actor. Michael Furlong talks his way through (the incredibly titled) After Ever After or Numbers on a Napkin. He’s some guy in New York, suffering after a breakup. It’s a boring story and, like I said,…
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From the title A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas sounds like a TV special, not a 3D movie extravaganza and director Strauss-Schulson feels the need to prove it every four minutes or so. Harold & Kumar often has pointless (if occasionally amazing) 3D set-pieces but they eventually stop. They stop after writers Jon Hurwitz…
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Every once in a while, Ponce will hold a really long shot. These shots are so long and awkward, #OMGIMTRENDING ceases to be some terrible hipster exercise about Twitter and it’s an intensely uncomfortable piece of cinema. Or, it would be, if Ponce’s composition of these shots wasn’t awful. And Ponce does come up with…
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Oh, man, is there really going to be a Kyle Rayner guest appearance next issue or is Marz’s just threatening? I still like Voodoo (we’ll see what I say next month with the guest star), but Marz’s plotting is a lot loosier here and he has more places to stumble. There’s some weak dialogue and…
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Langridge continues to build up Princess Scarlett in Snarked. She’s the only “good” person in the series, though the Walrus is showing himself to be… while not good, capable of adjusting his selfishness for the greater good. What’s most peculiar is actually how Langridge follows through on something. The issue opens with the threat of…
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CG animation has, much to my surprise, gotten to the point of disquieting reality. In Puss in Boots, Zach Galifianakis’s Humpty Dumpty has such real facial expressions, it makes the entire experience uncomfortable. The face, on the alien form, is too real. Galifianakis is Puss’s weakest casting choice. In fact, he might be the only…
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The first one of these “Marvel One-Shots” (starring mild-mannered Clark Gregg on side adventures) was pretty lame, but A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer is pretty darn good. It’s a little short (the end credits are almost longer than the short) and the licensing department missed out on a golden Hostess…
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Cartoon short tries way too hard to be grown-up (Catwoman’s saving strippers from human traffickers) and some of the action is really silly but Montgomery’s direction is spectacular enough to get it successfully through its fifteen minutes. DVD.Continue reading →
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Batman: Year One should be much, much better. As it stands, as animated adaptation of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s comic books, it’s a fantastic proof of concept. It’s no surprise, given much has already been adapted, albeit uncredited, into Batman Begins. I guess Christopher Nolan doesn’t know how to cite. But co-directors Sam Liu…
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While the most impressive thing about Real Steel is easily the CG robot boxers, one has to wonder why Shawn Levy didn’t also use computer graphics to make James Rebhorn look more lifelike. Rebhorn, who I was initially happy to see in the opening titles, appears to be wearing a pound of makeup. Steel has…
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Langridge has a lot to do in the first issue of Snarked. I’d probably be lost if I hadn’t read the zero issue. But it’s not just a lot of little events he has to cover—Princess Scarlett becomes Queen and ends up in semi-exile, under the reluctant care of the Walrus and McDunk—he has to…
The Stop Button 