A well known Parisian inspector becomes involved in an investigation while on holiday.
Woman-defined Identity I was never a champion of Chabrol, but I am amazed at what he left as his last film. The film is superficially framed as a detective story but as it progresses it slowly turns inside out as it becomes a discovery about the...
Against his father Odin's will, The Mighty Thor - a powerful but arrogant warrior god - recklessly reignites an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.
Shakespeare, Shouted I continue to maintain that the least imaginative and cinematically effective production group is not Michael Bay‘s, Jerry Bruckheimer‘s, or that gleeful combination of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. It is Marvel, who time after time think a hard punch is an effective punch,...
A group of students investigates a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter.
Petrified and Exploding Legacy Wow. This is yet another folding of a movie being made into the movie we see, but with the deliberate dissonance of ‘Blair Witch.‘ The game in such things is to play off the difference among layers. Blair did that well, I think. It...
Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.
Exotic Adventures For me, when a film fails to engage me by itself, I jump up a level, in this case making it a chapter in the movie of the life of Danny Boyle. I like the guy. I like his instincts. He envisions worlds that...
A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.
The Magical Inbetweens Magical spaces in Hispanically influenced films are easy to locate. We as viewers find it easy to place ourselves there it seems natural. Only Medem challenges. There are three similarly structured magical traditions in modern Japanese films, and I find them tantalising, sometimes difficult,...
In 1979 Ohio, several youngsters are making a zombie movie with a Super-8 camera. In the midst of filming, the friends witness a horrifying train derailment and are lucky to escape with their lives. They soon discover that the catastrophe was no accident, as a series of unexplained events and disappearances soon follows. Deputy Jackson Lamb, the father of one of the kids, searches for the terrifying truth behind the crash.
Reborn Another primary layering. This time the idea is to start with a horror subgenre and grow inside it. This is virtually set in the fifties (though literally in 1979). It has the military conspiracy, the small town at risk, the alien monster, the lone cop...
The career of a classical ballet dancer is short and often riddled with injuries, and it takes a special kind of artist to submit to the discipline and strenuous regimen needed to dance with a world-class company. Follows the young and gifted Katja Björner through years of intensive training at the Royal Swedish Ballet School as she develops into an international ballet star.
Balance, Shoes Filmmakers have three impossible challenges. How do you film lovemaking? How do you film dynamics of a group at a table? How do you film dance? This last is particularly interesting from a viewer’s perspective. Because the others are so familiar, you just need a...
A drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman and a man who is traumatized after a fatal car accident.
Brain Freeze Sometimes the folding is just too contrived. It panders, insults with its obviousness. Here we have a professional man, who in a car accident loses the child he has but has never met. The story arranges for compound suffering. Then we have the loss of...
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
Connected Paths I’ve been studying Chinese calligraphy in the context of the cinematic life. 1300 years ago, Chinese poet-theorists had the notion that layered expression, perhaps with four layers or more, was the purest expression possible. The first of these layers come with the ideograms: you...
Harry, Ron and Hermione continue their quest to vanquish the evil Voldemort once and for all. Just as things begin to look hopeless for the young wizards, Harry discovers a trio of magical objects that endow him with powers to rival Voldemort's formidable skills.
Jarndyce and Jarndyce I have read only a small portion from the books, but enough to understand the woman‘s approach. I have, however, attentively watched all the films. This comment applies to the entire saga with some attention to the final two. Charles Dickens invented a style...
