Sort by
Listing Movies
Display Movies
The Kovak Box (2006)
Filmmaker(s): Daniel Monzón

David Norton is used to being in control. As a best-selling author, he decides the fate of his characters, their lives and their deaths. But what happens when his fictional world becomes all too real?

Inverted Writing There is a standard form for a movie like this. It is so heavily imprinted that when you encounter a deviation, it shocks. We have a writer who wrote a book that comes alive. We expect that the relationship between book (the film...
Published November 9, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
Tagged: , ,
The Great Wall (2016)
1700 years to build. 5500 miles long. What were they trying to keep out?
Filmmaker(s): Zhang Yimou

European mercenaries searching for black powder become embroiled in the defense of the Great Wall of China against a horde of monstrous creatures.

Jump! I am an admirer of this filmmaker, and he does better when he gets closer to a single soul or small collection of them. But for large projects he seems to be able to understand how to group extras and their CG equivalent for...
Published November 6, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Twos |
Tagged: , ,
Paws of Fury The Legend of Hank (2022)
Time to mark some territory.

A hard-on-his-luck hound finds himself in a town full of cats in need of a hero to defend them from a ruthless villain's wicked plot to wipe their village off the map. With help from a reluctant mentor, our underdog must assume the role of town samurai and team up with the villagers to save the day.

Cat Play Viewer paradigms are evolving quickly in the film world. I think the COVID lull has stopped that temporarily as we wash out the projects like this that were on automatic pilot during that era. By evolving, I mean that we as viewers build...
Published October 29, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Ones |
Tagged: , ,
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
The saga will end. The story lives forever.
Filmmaker(s): J.J. Abrams

The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once again as the journey of Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron continues. With the power and knowledge of generations behind them, the final battle begins.

Folded Vision, Urges and Space Reflective Engagement I normally write about folding; the most obvious is when a film contains a film or play, but there are a bewildering number of types. The most interesting of these to me is when the film ‘folds’ the...
Published October 26, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
The battle for eternity is the fantasy of a lifetime.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Minkoff

An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

The Dance As a film considered the ordinary way, this is ordinary. It has a common framing device that folds the narrative: a wimpy kid rents lots of Kung Fu movies. Then he enters those movies which here are conflated with dreams. Pretty ordinary by...
Published October 23, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Hero (2002)
One man's strength will unite an empire.
Filmmaker(s): Zhang Yimou

During China's Warring States period, a district prefect arrives at the palace of Qin Shi Huang, claiming to have killed the three assassins who had made an attempt on the king's life three years ago.

Space Two things interesting about this project. First, the sad news, at least for the Chinese, that the Japanese have finally won. This is a Japanese film in all important respects: the theming by lush colour, the rather modern notion of benevolent conquest (genuinely originating...
Published October 23, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Bullet Train (2022)
The end of the line is just the beginning.
Filmmaker(s): David Leitch

Unlucky assassin Ladybug is determined to do his job peacefully after one too many gigs gone off the rails. Fate, however, may have other plans, as Ladybug's latest mission puts him on a collision course with lethal adversaries from around the globe—all with connected, yet conflicting, objectives—on the world's fastest train.

Stations I admit to thinking the Deadpool experiments are offensive. They have introspection of the kind I study, but it is one-dimensional and the humour doesn’t justify the sacrifice of self-aware sophistication. But this folds in the best parts of ‘Pulp Fiction’, and I find...
Published September 30, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
The epic conclusion of the Jurassic era.
Filmmaker(s): Colin Trevorrow

Four years after Isla Nublar was destroyed, dinosaurs now live—and hunt—alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators ona planet they now share with history's most fearsome creatures.

Ancient Chase DNA What I find curious is how franchises become more ordinary over time. This is far from an original observation in terms of world construction and story. It makes sense to reuse these, because that defines the franchise. So we get the same...
Published September 30, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Ones |
Tagged: , ,
The Equalizer (2014)
What do you see when you look at me?
Filmmaker(s): Antoine Fuqua

McCall believes he has put his mysterious past behind him and dedicated himself to beginning a new, quiet life. But when he meets Teri, a young girl under the control of ultra-violent Russian gangsters, he can’t stand idly by – he has to help her. Armed with hidden skills that allow him to serve vengeance against anyone who would brutalize the helpless, McCall comes out of his self-imposed retirement and finds his desire for justice reawakened. If someone has a problem, if the odds are stacked against them, if they have nowhere else to turn, McCall will help. He is The Equalizer.

Tattoo Signals Standard fare: good guy is endowed with superhuman killing capability, presumably used in the past for what the Agency thought was good. In simple retirement, he is drawn by his sheer goodness into massive, efficient elimination of the bad guys. There isn’t much...
Published September 30, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
Tagged: , ,
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
Return to the Source.
Filmmaker(s): Lana Wachowski

Plagued by strange memories, Neo's life takes an unexpected turn when he finds himself back inside the Matrix.

The Game I’ve enjoyed the series in spite of itself. When it started, it had three things going for it: a general stylishness, some original fight choreography, and a novel world’s cosmology. The first two have since been bested, including films with Keanu. We still...
Published September 21, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Twos |
Tagged: , ,
preloader image