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X2: X-Men United (2003)
The time has come for those who are different to stand united.
Filmmaker(s): Bryan Singer

Professor Charles Xavier and his team of genetically gifted superheroes face a rising tide of anti-mutant sentiment led by Col. William Stryker. Storm, Wolverine and Jean Grey must join their usual nemeses—Magneto and Mystique—to unhinge Stryker's scheme to exterminate all mutants.

Utterly Pedestrian I have enthusiastic hopes for big budget action pictures. That's because the market is so crowded, and the viewing public so visually sophisticated that we know that some thought must go into these things. This is especially so when you are building a franchise,...


Published October 8, 2024
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X-Men (2000)
Trust a few. Fear the rest.
Filmmaker(s): Bryan Singer

Two mutants, Rogue and Wolverine, come to a private academy for their kind whose resident superhero team, the X-Men, must oppose a terrorist organization with similar powers.

Missed a Chance One nice thing about this is the casting of McKellan and Stewart. Despite the latter's adventures with the stupid StarTrek, he is an intelligent actor, as is McKellan. They tower over the amateurs in this film as their characters should. About bad acting,...


Published September 30, 2024
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Wolfs (2024)
They're not partners. They're not friends. They're wolfs.
Filmmaker(s): Jon Watts

Hired to cover up a high-profile crime, a fixer soon finds his night spiralling out of control when he's forced to work with an unexpected counterpart.

Sundance Sundown One of the advantages of age is that I’ve seen older films when they were new. If you consider film viewing as at least a craft — as I do — then it matters that you are able to bring the personal anchoring of...


Published September 29, 2024
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Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
The King vs. The King of the Dead.
Filmmaker(s): Don Coscarelli

Bubba Ho-tep tells the "true" story of what really did become of Elvis Presley. We find Elvis as an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his "death," then missed his chance to switch back. He must team up with JFK and fight an ancient Egyptian mummy for the souls of their fellow residents.

The Singing Detective For those who don't know it, 'The Singing Detective' was the only decent thing I know that TeeVee has produced. It was one of those longish movies they call a miniseries. It featured a man in a hospital who imagined himself to be...


Published September 28, 2024
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The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Where will you be?
Filmmaker(s): Roland Emmerich

After years of increases in the greenhouse effect, havoc is wreaked globally in the form of catastrophic hurricanes, tornadoes, tidal waves, floods and the beginning of a new Ice Age. Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall tries to warn the world while also shepherding to safety his son, trapped in New York after the city is overwhelmed by the start of the new big freeze.

Burned Books Why oh why do makers of bad films sometimes put a really good actor in a minor part? It just makes everything else seem cheap. In this case, Ian Holm has a few small scenes that anchor the film. He plays the part that...


Published September 22, 2024
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Titanic (1997)
Nothing on Earth could come between them.
Filmmaker(s): James Cameron

101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.

The Huge Machine I admit to a certain admiration of Cameron. Alone among special effects manipulators, he has a solid sense of what works cinematically. When he invests, he invests in a world. That world envelops us with its completeness and magnitude. It is the opposite...


Published September 22, 2024
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2012 (2009)
We Were Warned.
Filmmaker(s): Roland Emmerich

Dr. Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect on the earth of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up. He warns U.S. President Thomas Wilson that the crust of the earth is becoming unstable and that without proper preparations for saving a fraction of the world's population, the entire race is doomed. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis stumbles on the same information. While the world's leaders race to build "arks" to escape the impending cataclysm, Curtis struggles to find a way to save his family. Meanwhile, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of unprecedented strength wreak havoc around the world.

Foreground - Background When you make a film that is nothing but flavoured special effects, when you make the matter of those effects into a character, you have two decisions to make. The first is whether you are dealing with object or environment. This is a fairly...


Published September 21, 2024
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Man from Reno (2014)
The greatest mystery she's ever written. And it could be her last…
Filmmaker(s): Dave Boyle

A mystery outside of San Francisco brings together small-town sheriff Paul Del Moral, Japanese author Aki Akahori, and a traveler from Reno who soon disappears, leaving behind his suitcase and a trail of questions.

Shell Game Alas, I continue to find comments original posted to IMDB, deleted because of a complaint by an unseen adversary — and therefore lost. However, a re-viewing brings this later comment. Spoilers here. This is much like ‘Chinatown’ with some ‘Vertigo’ mixed in. Both noirs of...


Published September 20, 2024
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Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Did she do it?
Filmmaker(s): Justine Triet

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

Pairy Maison The framing here is a courtroom drama, very simple and straightforward. A process that is (mostly) inhuman with a prosecutor we want to hate. We never discover what actually happened, and the craft here is in taking a simple ambiguity — did this woman...


Published September 20, 2024
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Quantum Cowboys (2022)
Observation always affects the outcome.
Filmmaker(s): Geoff Marslett

Two hapless drifters, Frank and Bruno, team up with Linde to recover her land and trek across 1870's Southern Arizona to find an elusive frontier musician. The complex quantum time theory is blended with philosophical musings about art as the way we understand our history and memories, with gunfights, horses, dance halls, cacti, and saloons!

Overlapping Takes This a bit of a philosophical stew but with naive ingredients. I don’t know how many movies we’ll get with this notion of parallel universes, each of which are occupied, or can be. But set that aside and accept it as a useful trope. In...


Published September 19, 2024
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