“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 Andrew Stanton’s adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ seminal science fiction pulp novel, A Princess of Mars— here blandly labeled John Carter— is equivalent to a genre-fueled out of body experience. You’ve seen this film before. You’ve seen it in Star Wars (both the original trilogy and the prequel films), you’ve seen it in Avatar, … Continue reading
John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard opens on what appears to be an obvious set-up at first glance: a car full of teens hurtling along the winding and narrow roads of Connemara, in the process of intoxication through the employment of various mediums, surely won’t be suffered to remain in drive for long in a story … Continue reading
For me, 2010’s in the bag, but it’s not totally wrapped up until I take the time to ruminate over the upcoming slate of movies in 2011 that excite me, discourage me, intrigue me, or puzzle/offend me (and, of course, also post the rest of my top ten, which is, I promise, coming around the … Continue reading
Dave Lizewski wants to know why more people don’t become superheroes. On the surface, it’s a pretty inane question, and one that his friend quickly and bluntly shoots down: Any normal person dressing up in a costume and fighting crime would wind up dead or hospitalized after their first day. But Dave is too driven … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 