I’m on again, off again with Denis Villeneuve; I’m unabashedly wild about Enemy, but I never could stand Prisoners and I can only enjoy Sicario as long as I don’t think too much about it. With Arrival, I’m closer to Enemy than not – it worked on me, and worked on everyone around me, which may be because it’s genuinely good … Continue reading
The big question The Bourne Legacy must answer: does it successfully restart the franchise and pick up where Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass left off? In a word, no. Tony Gilroy, assuming the role of director for the first time in the series, bungles story, character, and action here in big, unforgivable ways while poor Jeremy Renner struggles gamely against the film’s weaknesses. Continue reading
The Avengers didn’t have to do much to impress me. Being as honest as possible, Joss Whedon’s attempt at making a respectable entrance into the 2012 summer season with the capstone picture of Marvel Studios’ long-gestating superhero bonanza just needed to be tolerable to get a pass from me. Put bluntly, C-level material alone would … Continue reading
Well, we’re almost into April, and I can only imagine that in the coming thirty days we’ll see the campaign promoting the May 2nd release of The Avengers ramp up in a big way. Marvel’s unleashed some new screen caps here and there to follow up the truly horrible poster released at the end of February and … 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
The Town serves as a direct competition between Ben Affleck, actor, and Ben Affleck, director, in a bid to determine which of the two stands out as the dominant personality. Anyone who saw 2007’s Gone Baby Gone already can guess that the latter incarnation of the Cambridge-born Affleck emerges victorious, and if anything, The Town … Continue reading
2009’s sucker-punching Iraq war military drama, The Hurt Locker, is a tense and episodic film, and perhaps one of the most individual war movies ever made. In any examination of war, politics almost inevitably find a way to trickle down into the story’s bloodstream and flood it with its ideological leanings and proclivities. What makes … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 