Reflective Narrative You can draw a chart of what goes on in Nolan’s mind and how that instances in the worlds of cinema and the one I share. That chart would then be superimposed on a chart of timelines and events in this film. Nolan’s chart would trace an obsession with narrative reinterpretation plus cinematic… Continue reading Tenet (2020)
Category: Threes
Films rated three stars out of three
Birth (2004)
Operatic There’s a scene in this that will be a feature of film school classes for a long time to come. Nicole is an uneven actress, only sometimes rising to the world class of Kate and Cate and the young Julianne. The smallest part of this is the process of inhabiting a character, rare enough… Continue reading Birth (2004)
The Bird People in China (1998)
Purity, Song, Jade Miike has a pretty solid pattern. He makes films for a distinctly Japanese audience, teasing out some issue or two that seems culturally rooted. This is his context. He shifts it into a magical, cinematic world and imagines scenes as episodes within this containing structure. So we get impressed by the big… Continue reading The Bird People in China (1998)
Oppenheimer (2023)
Fours First let me remark on the film itself. Visually, Nolan continues his ‘dogma of performance’ where every decision is slanted toward reality except — predictably — the sex scenes. Structurally, he has mapped his philosophy of folded narrative onto basically four events with nested histories, both as traditional viewer-oriented (narrative-expository) flashbacks, and those carried… Continue reading Oppenheimer (2023)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Camera in the Head I’m an enthusiast of film, the kind of film that uses the uniquely cinematic qualities of the medium. From time to time, I see a non-cinematic film which I like. This is one such. By non-cinematic, I mean that the film is not more than play. Film adds only a few… Continue reading The Big Sleep (1946)
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022)
Ensnared The affirmative platitudes that anchor this are inescapable, and since they are relatively true, you may as well embrace them. My tween boys did, and I’m glad for it. But why I am recommending this is the art and animation. I have to admit that I do not know the legacy. For all I… Continue reading The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022)
The New World (2005)
Matoaka’s Miranda (This comment was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user, because of some perceived religious slight.) Malick’s method is to frame films as remembrances. Remembrances of romantic notions, whether freedom, peace, war or love (as his four films trace). This way, he can exploit a languorous floating through… Continue reading The New World (2005)
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
Comedic Self-reference You can read from others about the basic nature of this, and how widely it is admired and enjoyed. I myself admire and enjoy it. It is a movie about movies. Its something between a “Scary Movie” style parody and a “Charlie’s Angel’s” … What’s called an homage but is really more of… Continue reading Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Three Strikes To me, what‘s interesting about this are the many different, completely different ways one can approach it. For most folks, at the time this was made, it dealt with deep national issues of identity and war. For most others fifty years later, this is a character study of an apparently comic fellow, who… Continue reading The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
The Falls (1980)
Borges Meets Hitchhiker’s Guide How Greenaway surprises. Here is an early work that is rich in ways that in later works seem submerged. The concept: A ‘Violent Unexplained Event’ occurs at 11:41 PM GMT, 14 June, People experience physical changes, often transitioning to birds. 92 new languages appear, and 92 birdnames are embossed in some… Continue reading The Falls (1980)