Sort by
Listing Movies
Display Movies
Skyfall (2012)
Think on your sins.
Filmmaker(s): Sam Mendes

When Bond's latest assignment goes gravely wrong, agents around the world are exposed and MI6 headquarters is attacked. While M faces challenges to her authority and position from Gareth Mallory, the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, it's up to Bond, aided only by field agent Eve, to locate the mastermind behind the attack.

Hacked Screens Gosh, what a difference it makes when you bring in real artists! Here we have essentially the same formula as always, produced by the same Broccoli thick heads as usual. Also, as usual, the production was ‘troubled,’ with fundamental changes occurring well into production. Plus...


Published February 6, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
The Great Gatsby (2013)
Dream dangerously.
Filmmaker(s): Baz Luhrmann

An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Soon enough, however, Carraway will see through the cracks of Gatsby's nouveau riche existence, where obsession, madness, and tragedy await.

Moulin Green When I saw Moulin Rouge,’ I knew that life would change, because film would have an added mainstream vocabulary. We would embrace it and adjust our dreams and intuitions. And indeed we have had Nolan ascendant. Even TeeVee has shifted. Oddly, after that film, Lurhmann...


Published February 6, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Gravity (2013)
Don't let go.
Filmmaker(s): Alfonso Cuarón

Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first Shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The Shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone-tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness of space. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.

The Other Red Shoe One use of science fiction is to purify the threads of a story by displacing them from the distracting familiar. This gives more than clarity; it often frees the narrative to rest in our souls rather than our eyes, rather like the...


Published February 6, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
Beyond darkness... beyond desolation... lies the greatest danger of all.
Filmmaker(s): Peter Jackson

The Dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf have successfully escaped the Misty Mountains, and Bilbo has gained the One Ring. They all continue their journey to get their gold back from the Dragon, Smaug.

The Source of the Imagining I read many criticisms of this. Apparently, there is a fundamentalist Tolkien fan club that rivals the Austen group in assailing anyone that deviates from the written word; by this I mean the last rewrite of Tolkien‘s I never could finish any...


Published February 6, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
World War Z (2013)
There will come a day when the world we know will end.
Filmmaker(s): Marc Forster

Life for former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.

Angry Water I understand that the development of this was a mess. What mattered to me were three things done well: The transition from normal life to the human waves was jarringly effective. What I expect is a traditional zombie story. Some explanation and setup is given...


Published February 5, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Boyhood (I) (2014)
12 years in the making.
Filmmaker(s): Richard Linklater

The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.

Students, Teachers, Dogs When I watch a reasonably well built film, I cruise at two levels. One is the excellence of how I am captured by the way the narrative unfolds in a world I am seduced into maintaining (and possibly cocreating). The other gliding level...


Published February 5, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
The Monuments Men (2014)
It was the greatest art heist in history
Filmmaker(s): George Clooney

Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?

The Diary I am thankful that Clooney is working. I’ve heard him speak as himself; he is a good man, interested in good things. I forgive him his lack of range as an actor, because the characters he plays are so engaging. And he made ‘Good...


Published February 5, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Phantom of Chinatown (1940)
A Slight Case Of Murder... Solved by Jimmy Wong!
Filmmaker(s): Phil Rosen

In the middle of a pictorial lecture on his recent expedition to the Mongolian Desert, Dr. John Benton,the famous explorer, drinks from the water bottle on his lecture table, collapses and dies. His last words "Eternal Fire" are the only clue Chinese detective Jimmy Wong and Captain Street of the police department have to work on.

Conspiratorial Filmmaking I maintain that some very important conventions were worked out in 30s mysteries. The Charlie Chan series was instrumental in some of these, and this is the last of them. It incidentally has Charlie‘s son as the detective, the first Asian playing the character....


Published February 5, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
The House of Fear (1939)
Filmmaker(s): Joe May

A detective goes undercover as a producer to investigate an actor's murder, which occurred during the performance of a play...

Triple Staged I watch these old mysteries not because I expect to find a good one. They rarely are, but often you can see a free art experimenting with different cinematic tricks while no one yet had a settled cinematic vocabulary. And here is a good...


Published February 5, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox (2006)
A documentary about obsession, compassion and all-purpose soap.
Filmmaker(s): Sara Lamm

A human story about a socially responsible company, “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox” documents the complicated family legacy behind the counterculture’s favorite cleaning product — Bronner’s son, 68-year-old Ralph, endured over 15 orphanages and foster homes as a child, but despite difficult memories, is his father’s most ardent fan.

Legacy, Chemistry Documentaries are hard to do. Nearly always what the filmmaker encounters is the complexity of life, from which they try to pull a narrative. Most often, that narrative is refined, abstracted from the world to match expectations. The best of these instead challenge our...


Published February 5, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
preloader image