From My Collection: Bright Star Movie Review

Depicting an artist at work in a film is a tricky thing. The possibilities are greater when dealing with the visual arts because the process of creation is dynamic. But when it comes to filming the story of a writer, what can the filmmaker do to depict process? After all, what is a writer’s process in the majority of cases if not to sit at a desk and think…and write…and drink coffee…and think…and wait for ideas or inspiration? This does not make for very interesting cinema. So the most interesting films centered on writers tend to focus on something that is only tangentially connected to the writing or the finished product. Jane Campion’s Bright Star was a mesmerizing love story to me when I first saw it nearly four years ago and it remained so when I watched it again recently. The movie circumvents the problems of filming a writer’s life and work by making the story about the poet John Keats’ three year unconsummated love affair with Fanny Brawne.

Cloud Atlas Movie Review

As a film critic I would love to have the luxury of seeing every new film and writing about it. As this is not a paying job for me, I have to pick and choose what I see, mostly based on personal preference, but often choosing films that are popular or important benchmarks. The subject matter of Cloud Atlas hardly interested me, although the filmmakers involved certainly did. The Wachowski siblings, Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) brought us The Matrix trilogy, the first installment of which I think is filled with wonderful vision, a great story, and brilliant use of visual effects. I found Tom Tykwer deeply intriguing as a filmmaker with both Run, Lola, Run and The Princess and the Warrior, although admittedly I know nothing of his work in the past decade. Together these three directors decided to bring David Mitchell’s complicated 2004 novel which involves six stories in different time periods and characters that exist as alternate versions of themselves across time and space.

Skyfall Movie Review: Bond 23

The idea that the James Bond film series needs to be rebooted doesn’t make a lot of sense. Nearly every film is a reboot because there’s virtually no continuity between films. Daniel Craig’s first outing as the superspy 007 in Casino Royale was a reboot of sorts in the sense that many of the things the Bond series had been known for were ousted. Neither Miss Moneypenny nor Q made appearances. With Skyfall, Craig’s third turn as Bond, it becomes clearer that the new series is something akin to a reboot because many of the old comforts have returned.