It’s sort of improbable that Michael Mann was able to
make Heat the way he wanted to at the
length of nearly three hours. How did a studio greenlight that decision? Mann
was not a known director like a Scorsese or a Spielberg. Crime drama was not
exactly a genre that typically lent itself to epic scope and length. I can only
surmise that it was on the strength of having Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as
the two leads that made executives believe that people would come to this
movie. It didn’t hurt, I’m sure, that the movie is exceptionally well-made.
A blog mostly dedicated to cinema (including both new and old film reviews; commentary; and as the URL suggests - movie lists, although it has been lacking in this area to be honest), but on occasion touching on other areas of personal interest to me.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
The Witch Movie Review
As a first time feature film maker, Robert Egger
demonstrates a skilled and assured hand at how to handle material that is
delicate on several fronts. The Witch,
which he wrote and directed, deals with puritanical religious dogma of the
seventeenth century, witchcraft, and also the conventions of horror and
psychological thrillers. So much could have gone wrong in setting a tone and a
pace, but Eggers gets most of it right.
For starters, he set his film nearly four centuries ago
in New England. As such the dialogue, much of which is taken from contemporaneous
transcripts and texts, contains a style that, to the ears of a 21st
century American, sounds like something out of a restoration village where
actors pretend they know nothing about modern technology. Also the family at
the center of the movie, who have been banished from the village for “prideful
conceit”, exercise such deep religious conviction that we might feel
uncomfortable laughter coming on. But the events that transpire are no laughing
matter.
Deadpool Movie Review
For all the hoopla surrounding Deadpool – strong box office receipts; excellent audience
reception; and even positive critical consensus – it doesn’t take long to look
past the surface to see that there’s not really much there apart from an
admittedly entertaining comic book adaptation. Shouldn’t that be enough for a
comic book superhero movie? We go for the entertainment, right? But nothing
else?
This may be a case of people getting a little too excited
just because the movie attempts to break ranks with the clichés of the genre.
Instead of pleasant PG-13 action that’s short on bad language and long on mild
violence, Deadpool sears up and down,
there’s sex, and the violence (though cartoonish) very violent and full of
blood. This ground has been trod before. Kick
Ass got there first, although I think Deadpool does it better and with great moral clarity.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Dough Movie Review
It feels almost obscene to speak negatively of a film
like Dough. It has only the best
intentions. It is not malicious and takes on several noble subjects that are
both particular to its London setting as well as universal in the multicultural
21st century.
Jonathan Pryce is a wonderful actor who has made a career
of flying just under the radar of superstardom. Here he plays Nat Dayan,
proprietor of a kosher bakery that is on the brink of failure alongside the
corporate one-stop shopping convenience next door. He’s hardly recognizable
behind a thick beard and gristled locks of hair, and a yarmulke. Nat clings to
an old way of life in which the family business passes from father to son and
the Jewish community thrives in perpetuity. But time marches on and change
comes. His son became a successful lawyer and the Jews are fleeing (most likely
to the suburbs as they earn their continued financial successes), being
replaced by immigrants and refugees, many of them African Muslims.
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