A Hello Now that I am free from posting on IMDB, I can watch films and study alternative film sources that matter. Movies emerged from a context. I understand that context in the West well enough for my purposes. The narrative devices I study are inherited from literary traditions, but I need to spend more… Continue reading David Bull: The Great Wave (2015)
Category: Threes
Films rated three stars out of three
The GrandMaster (2013)
Uppercut I’ve been in training of a sort and unable to view serious movies, so it was difficult to arrange for this, and the anticipation built. Now I regret not having prepared better. Filmmaking for me is calligraphy on water. A filmmaker’s art can be in the shape of what is written. Nolan, for example… Continue reading The GrandMaster (2013)
Jodorowsy’s Dune (2013)
The Exuberant Eye I am glad the man is alive and still making films, though they don’t drive my soul the way some work does. I like that he is aware of parallel narratives, is visual and fearless. His notions of sex and oppression are decoupled from the physical, and that is remarkable. For my… Continue reading Jodorowsy’s Dune (2013)
Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
Head Space I really disliked the first one. The world building, in retrospect, was very impressive, building on a number of strong cinematic conventions that were ripe for evolution. But all the backstory and parallel plots, all the character development was within a single testosterone paradigm. I thought it a one-note elaboration on something dumb.… Continue reading Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
Unmistakable Child (2008)
Unputdownable Tulku If you have not seen this, it documents from the cremation of a senior Buddhist monk to the certification of his reincarnation by the hierarchy though to the Dalai Lama, and subsequent installation in a monastery at about three. We follow the quest by the old monk’s most loyal follower, a dear soul.… Continue reading Unmistakable Child (2008)
The Illusionist (2006)
Flight Club We know what’s coming with this and we even know how. At least I think most viewers will. It is a con movie, but with more explicit folding. In the usual con genre, there is a mark who is fooled along with us the viewers. In this version, the con is literally a… Continue reading The Illusionist (2006)
Amélie (2001)
Life, A User’s Manual I avoided this film for ever-so-long because of what I had heard about it. One would believe that this is a well-photographed simple sweet story. That somehow it has something to do with the adventures of a sweet girl-woman. Well, it is. But it is so much else, and that ‘something… Continue reading Amélie (2001)
Triangle (2009)
Spilled Blue Paint for Water I love this stuff. Making stories is at root a challenge of surfing between the expected and known and the ambiguous surprise. The further you go into the world of non-linear sense, the more control and skill is required. If the filmmaker and viewer can negotiate a space that works,… Continue reading Triangle (2009)
Rize (2005)
Their Space, My Breath I suppose there will be great numbers of viewers who will come away from this feeling good. The myth of the movie, pounded over and over, is that the art these kids devote themselves to elevates them, saves them. There are copious extra features on the disk where the same plodding… Continue reading Rize (2005)
Go (1999)
Unbearable Lightness of Going Critics and commentors have beaten to death the Pulp Fiction’ comparisons. Yes, this has parallel stories, time folding (but not the time shuffling of Pulp’), black and white shuffling, guns drugs and ironic violence, diner scenes and a hip perspective. But to me that is less central than the relationship of… Continue reading Go (1999)