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The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Where will you be?
Filmmaker(s): Roland Emmerich

After years of increases in the greenhouse effect, havoc is wreaked globally in the form of catastrophic hurricanes, tornadoes, tidal waves, floods and the beginning of a new Ice Age. Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall tries to warn the world while also shepherding to safety his son, trapped in New York after the city is overwhelmed by the start of the new big freeze.

Burned Books Why oh why do makers of bad films sometimes put a really good actor in a minor part? It just makes everything else seem cheap. In this case, Ian Holm has a few small scenes that anchor the film. He plays the part that...


Published September 22, 2024
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Titanic (1997)
Nothing on Earth could come between them.
Filmmaker(s): James Cameron

101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.

The Huge Machine I admit to a certain admiration of Cameron. Alone among special effects manipulators, he has a solid sense of what works cinematically. When he invests, he invests in a world. That world envelops us with its completeness and magnitude. It is the opposite...


Published September 22, 2024
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2012 (2009)
We Were Warned.
Filmmaker(s): Roland Emmerich

Dr. Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect on the earth of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up. He warns U.S. President Thomas Wilson that the crust of the earth is becoming unstable and that without proper preparations for saving a fraction of the world's population, the entire race is doomed. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis stumbles on the same information. While the world's leaders race to build "arks" to escape the impending cataclysm, Curtis struggles to find a way to save his family. Meanwhile, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of unprecedented strength wreak havoc around the world.

Foreground - Background When you make a film that is nothing but flavoured special effects, when you make the matter of those effects into a character, you have two decisions to make. The first is whether you are dealing with object or environment. This is a fairly...


Published September 21, 2024
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Man from Reno (2014)
The greatest mystery she's ever written. And it could be her last…
Filmmaker(s): Dave Boyle

A mystery outside of San Francisco brings together small-town sheriff Paul Del Moral, Japanese author Aki Akahori, and a traveler from Reno who soon disappears, leaving behind his suitcase and a trail of questions.

Shell Game Alas, I continue to find comments original posted to IMDB, deleted because of a complaint by an unseen adversary — and therefore lost. However, a re-viewing brings this later comment. Spoilers here. This is much like ‘Chinatown’ with some ‘Vertigo’ mixed in. Both noirs of...


Published September 20, 2024
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Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Did she do it?
Filmmaker(s): Justine Triet

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

Pairy Maison The framing here is a courtroom drama, very simple and straightforward. A process that is (mostly) inhuman with a prosecutor we want to hate. We never discover what actually happened, and the craft here is in taking a simple ambiguity — did this woman...


Published September 20, 2024
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Quantum Cowboys (2022)
Observation always affects the outcome.
Filmmaker(s): Geoff Marslett

Two hapless drifters, Frank and Bruno, team up with Linde to recover her land and trek across 1870's Southern Arizona to find an elusive frontier musician. The complex quantum time theory is blended with philosophical musings about art as the way we understand our history and memories, with gunfights, horses, dance halls, cacti, and saloons!

Overlapping Takes This a bit of a philosophical stew but with naive ingredients. I don’t know how many movies we’ll get with this notion of parallel universes, each of which are occupied, or can be. But set that aside and accept it as a useful trope. In...


Published September 19, 2024
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The Wild Robot (2024)
Filmmaker(s): Chris Sanders

After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose.

Programmed At the front I have to say that both the adults were affected, cried, emoted. This is a Mommy story in a sea of Daddy stories, especially animated ‘family’ fare. It pulled on some formulaic strings, enough for me to say that this knows the...


Published September 15, 2024
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Twisters (2024)
Chase. Ride. Survive.
Filmmaker(s): Lee Isaac Chung

As storm season intensifies, the paths of former storm chaser Kate Carter and reckless social-media superstar Tyler Owens collide when terrifying phenomena never seen before are unleashed. The pair and their competing teams find themselves squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.

Surrey with the Fringe on Top It might be enough to build a movie around special effects that don’t involve a fight or monsters. These usually fall into the catastrophe category. The key to that category it seems, is the noir necessity that the catastrophe happens...


Published August 25, 2024
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Love and Mercy (2014)
The Life, Love and Genius of Brian Wilson
Filmmaker(s): Bill Pohlad

In the late 1960s, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson stops touring, produces "Pet Sounds" and begins to lose his grip on reality. By the 1980s, under the sway of a controlling therapist, he finds a savior in Melinda Ledbetter.

The Sergeant’s Retreat The scriptwriter’s obligation is to sketch a world that has enough definition for us to inhabit and understand the influences on the characters within. The default is to make that world simple so we do the least work in engaging. That’s what they...


Published August 22, 2024
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Penn & Teller: Fool Us (2011- )
Up to their new tricks.

Illusionists Penn & Teller throw down the gauntlet to aspiring magicians to perform their most mystifying trick - and fool Penn and Teller. Penn & Teller have no prior knowledge of either the performers or the planned trick. They sit in the audience just like everyone else, watching every move the guest magicians make. If any illusionist fools the professionals, they win a five star trip to Las Vegas to perform as the opening act in Penn & Teller's world famous show at the Rio Hotel & Casino.

Game Changing I think I have seen most of the episodes of this, all out of order. There really is nothing like it in my experience. It is reality TV, while being stage performances. It has several different personalities as focus, but shifts to our focus...


Published August 21, 2024
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