Tag Archive
Farewell, My Lovely
When you rely on the 20 year old cycle of nostalgia as your form of entertainment, you know that the material is going to date instantly. It’s one thing to be a sort of time capsule movie that reflects the period it was made in (like William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in LA), but […]
Limitless
You’re always in trouble when you go high concept because it means, if you’re going to be fair to yourself, you shouldn’t take the easy way out and just pile on the clichés. What’s the point of having promise and then going through the motions anyway, considering you’re not interested in developing your own idea? […]
The Missing Person
It’s a shame that Hollywood is only interested in making origin films for the heroes of comic book films. Such is the case with the recent X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Frankly, the heroes tend to be dull. And so, while there are some aberrations—such as with Lexi Alexander’s campy, silly, and ridiculously entertaining and colorful Punisher: […]
Crank: High Voltage
Is it possible to be consciously and intentionally out of control? If a Nascar driver were swerving and spinning for hundreds of laps and ended up winning the race, could he do the same thing again on purpose? Should you be given credit for a lucky accident? Donnie Darko might be the answer to those […]
Cold Souls
If you rip off an original idea in an original way, is it still stealing? Does it really matter one way or the other, since the presentation is more important than your “acquired” idea? The fallacy of the original idea is a nice trap thrown in by those rejecting material without needing to explain their […]
Quantum of Solace
One of the most amusing things about the influx of Bourne-style action movies is that it puts the filmmakers in a peculiar bind. The Bourne films take themselves very seriously, but amidst their constant globetrotting (I’d imagine Jason Bourne manages to fill up even his fake passports with travel stamps), they tend to stay in […]