This all seems awfully familiar: it’s December, and a big-scale fantasy epic based on one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s essential landmark novels has been adapted to the screen by the man who directed Dead Alive. Forget that we’re trekking back to Middle Earth, the arrival of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is itself a return to a status quo … Continue reading
The Wachowski siblings are back four years after their last directorial effort, this time with Tom Tykwer in tow, and their adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas is a magnificent opus of optimism and hope. Continue reading
To call Captain America: The First Avenger “perfect” would be something of an overstatement– the opening scene serves absolutely no appreciable purpose whatsoever for the movie’s narrative, and the denouement gets a little choppy and falters in set-up and execution. The unsavory frames of film that bookend what you could call Joe Johnston’s masterpiece (with … Continue reading
Part 2 of my 2011 preview commences…now! (Part 1 can be perused here, at your leisure.) X-Men: First Class— By happy coincidence, the first trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s period prequel to the X-Men franchise hit just last week, and guess what? It looks really good. Focusing specifically on the relationship between Erik Lehnsherr, the man … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 