“Remember when spy movies blended melodramatic international intrigue with wacky gadgetry, high adventure, and the good breeding of the gentlemen class? Remember when they weren’t po-faced efforts pressured, perhaps by unreasonable audience demands, into being grounded and gritty, plus any number of tepid industry buzzwords? Matthew Vaughn does, and for that matter so does comic … Continue reading
Watching 2009’s A Single Man out of sequence with 2010’s hit The King’s Speech puts Colin Firth’s performances in both in a different light and certainly removes the possibility of prejudicial viewings of the latter. I can say with absolute confidence that Firth could have won his Oscar for either of them, and that I … Continue reading
What makes the efforts of one director superior to those of another? If one person wins Best Director, does it stand to reason that they should also win Best Picture? I had these two questions– and sub-questions pertaining to both, as well as variations on each of said questions– rolling around in my head after … Continue reading
I’m not one to make a habit of writing about awards shows. Yes, I’m happy to comment on pieces other people have written about the Golden Globes or the Oscars, but as a rule I avoid committing blog posts to such subjects. They don’t interest me; this is entirely because they’re not produced for me … Continue reading
It’s that time of year (hey, at least it’s closer to that time of year than I was last January)– time for me to pontificate about which films released in 2010 tickled my fancy enough to be worthy of placement on my top ten list. I had a rough time with this year, personally; I’m … Continue reading
Tom Hooper’s critical darling The King’s Speech could have been made strictly as a breezy piece of crowd-pleasing art house entertainment, light, airy, and ultimately forgettable, and it still would have been worth seeing. Alternately it could have been approached explicitly as a period drama intent on examining the speech impediment of the man who … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 