Step by Step Watching Jackie movies is sometimes a real challenge, especially the English language ones. This barely qualifies as English, but is the best one. What he does with ordinary objects is absolutely amazing. There’s a classic ladder bit here. Ignore the plot — standard filler. Posted in 2004 Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of… Continue reading First Strike (1996)
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Jabberwocky (1977)
Bonecrushing Display of Phosphorescence Rest assured that there is little relationship between this film and Carroll’s poem about his father’s crusade against French etymology. Instead, we have the first chapter in Gilliam’s quest for an appropriate vehicle for his imagination. That imagination isn’t comic in the ordinary sense. Gilliam’s world is one which is architecturally… Continue reading Jabberwocky (1977)
JFK (1991)
Conspiracy of the Simple I have my own theory about film. There is always an explicit acknowledgement that what you are seeing is a film, distinct from reality. Many films incorporate that recognition into their being; the simple ones are just films about films and filmmaking, but there are other sophisticated ways of self-reference. It… Continue reading JFK (1991)
Alleyn Mysteries: Final Curtain (1993)
Exit Stage Left I haven’t seen all of these productions. Usually I go through the whole series, and I may eventually come back to this. I watched this because I saw “Death at the Bar,” which was truly superb. It was because they built it around director Winterbottom’s special skills, the writer working to them… Continue reading Alleyn Mysteries: Final Curtain (1993)
Wrath of Man (2021)
Armoured A bit disappointed in Richie. This is a solid production. Nothing wrong. Timing and pacing are near perfect, as these things require. The drone in soundtrack is apt. The nested flashbacks are exactly where they need to be to get us hooked in that important early phase. But Richie’s work is normally risky with… Continue reading Wrath of Man (2021)
Cruella (2021)
Princess Leyline One way to look at this is why it was made. Clearly, Disney marketing has found a princess niche not served by the direct approach. You have to admire the art of discovering and mining a market. Perhaps no one can do what these folks do in discovering and exploiting tween girl urge.… Continue reading Cruella (2021)
The Willoughbys (2020)
Evil Hair What used to be a side episode in larger stories has now grown to centre stage. In Cinderella, Snow White and such, we have a cruel stepmother. In recent films, we have dozens that mirror that and add inept father. But those use the bad situation of the child as background; the story… Continue reading The Willoughbys (2020)
Captain Underpants (2018-20)
Underawares I actually steer my kids to this area rather than ordinary fare. It has silliness and poor production values. While the stories are vacuous, they are refreshingly free of messages and morals. But the value to me is the incredible fun they have with shifted nesting, what I sometimes call ‘folding’. If you don’t… Continue reading Captain Underpants (2018-20)
The Woman in the Window (2021)
Painful You wonder why filmmakers make the choices they do. Here is a filmmaker who specialises in acute realism, expansive vision and narrative clarity. He’s chosen a project designed to expand his palette, one that depends on claustrophobic madness and resulting visions. These visions are what we need for the untrusted narration. I don’t know… Continue reading The Woman in the Window (2021)
Army of the Dead (2021)
Legionnaire’s Disease I was completely taken by “Sucker Punch”: layered, visually imaginative. Narrative ambiguity and engineered parallel causality. “300” on the other hand seemed an unadorned testosterone arc. In both cases, the visual composition was notable, in terms of mastery of rhythm. This is more on the simple side, albeit festooned with all the shooting… Continue reading Army of the Dead (2021)