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So
it goes like it goes... a decade of film criticism
How’s
this for an eye-opener? Out of sheer coincidence, I reflected
late last week on the amount of time and energy I have spent
reviewing film on the internet, and much to my surprise, it
dawned on me, rather suddenly, that the following Tuesday
was to be the tenth – yes, TENTH – anniversary
of my first time being published online. The review was for
“The Black Cauldron,” and Buena Vista Home Video
had just released the Disney cartoon for the first time ever
on VHS.
Posted August 5, 2008 |
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ON
DVD AND BLU-RAY
Dark
City: The Director's Cut
The opportunity to revisit “Dark City”
ten years from whence it found its way into the imaginations
of a generation of eloquent and sophisticated movie-goers
is, in many ways, just as staggering as it is rewarding. A
personal barometer for which most (if not all) films have
been measured in the years since, the film endures with me
as one of the ageless, nourishing visions of modern cinema,
significant for the fact that it attained a certain scope
of detail that continues to drive the true promise of filmmaking.
Posted August 12, 2008 |
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IN
THEATERS
The
Dark Knight
The crazed, almost hypnotic dance of wits that
is shared between Batman and the Joker is the most memorable
of the public rivalries exhibited in the comic books about the
caped crusader, a savagely perceptive conflict in which good
and evil forces meet and clash with dizzying arrays of results
ranging from the exciting to the profound. They also share a
chemistry that is often imitated but never fully replicated,
and despite a broad arsenal of enemies that have been thrown
into the midst of the dark knight’s presence, none of
them come close to matching.
Posted July 30, 2008 |
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IN
THEATERS
Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
It has been nearly 20 years since the last
installment into the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg franchise
that solidified Harrison Ford as a Hollywood action star.
For those that express concern and/or confusion over the prospect
of a movie hero being dusted off and revived so long after
the fact, we should remind you that the resurgence of the
aged action star is but a new hot commodity in Hollywood.
Otherwise, how does one explain the rousing success of recent
return ventures into film franchises like "Rocky,"
"Rambo" and "Die Hard?"
Posted June 1, 2008 |
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IN
THEATERS
The
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 
The Narnia of Caspian X is a place more menacing
and cutthroat than that of the early age, ravaged by land-hungry
totalitarians known as the Telmarines, its wondrous populations
of fawns, talking animals and tree spirits silenced by their
ruthless pillaging of the establishments of old. They occupy
the screen in “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”
with a certain arrogance in their demeanor, dressed in lush
robes and observed carrying themselves less like invaders and
more like monarchs of England’s Tudor era. To say that
their existence feeds into an assumption that the movie’s
writers are beginning to see C.S. Lewis’ magical world
from a more political context would be an understatement.
Posted May 25, 2008 |
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IN
THEATERS
Speed
Racer
“Speed Racer” is a stylish, electrifying,
intense and visually breathtaking catastrophe of a movie,
a picture so filled with wondrous images and astonishing sights
that one is left bewildered by the notion of so much technical
energy being squandered on a narrative so obviously uninterested
in matching it. Or maybe that is basically the whole point.
I dunno. Based off of an old 1960s Japanese animated series–
one which I am unfamiliar with – the filmmakers present
their endeavor with just the kind of flat-footed, shapeless
screenplay you half expect to be derived of the source material.
But what empowers these filmmakers with enough nerve to justify
giving this clueless premise much more enthralling a presentation
than it so clearly deserves?
Posted May 9, 2008 |
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THE
ARCHIVES
The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 
The blood-soaked horror movie has become a disgusting
and contemptible beast, burdened by notions of macho-sadism
and traces of insanity that suggest their filmmakers are either
overzealous with visuals, completely twisted and warped, or
somewhere in between. They only get away with it because audiences
have embraced it for 30 years. Recall the success of the original
“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” or how audiences
flooded to “Friday the 13th” and its sequels. Moviegoers
seem to be amused by brainless bloodbaths in which idiotic teenagers
are sliced and diced like cuts of meat at a slaughterhouse.
Posted May 9, 2008 |
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