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Kick-Ass (2012)
Shut up. Kick-Ass.
Filmmaker(s): Matthew Vaughn

Dave Lizewski is an unnoticed high school student and comic book fan who one day decides to become a super-hero, even though he has no powers, training or meaningful reason to do so.

Drawing One’s Self saw this fellow’s last movie. “Stardust.” It was an idea full of potential but lacked coherence, soul. It took you a world (two worlds) that were puddles created by each craft. This is less incoherent, but still has no intent, no imperative...


Published February 27, 2023
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Truly Miss Marple: The Curious Case of Margaret Rutherford (2012)

The true life story of Margaret Rutherford (1892-1972) is in fact much more eccentric than the most famous fictional role she ever played: Miss Jane Marple, Agatha Christie's amateur sleuth. Rutherford's version was the very first appearance of Miss Marple on the big screen and it was far removed though from the petite, upper middle-class lady in the detective novels.

Unembellishments you just come to this without the Christie context, you will be appalled. If you come understanding Christie, you will be doubly appalled. Here we have a quirky actress who plays a single quirky character. The character has some appeal in most of the...


Published February 22, 2023
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Seven Psychopaths (2012)
They Won't Take Any Shih Tzu.
Filmmaker(s): Martin McDonagh

A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

Counted Only Two guess this was inevitable. I haven’t yet seen the latest Tarantino faux western, but chose to see this instead. Roughly speaking, it is what used to be called a spoof, before referencing, extending and adding a meta level became permissible. What impresses me...


Published February 18, 2023
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Holmes & Watson. Madrid Days (2012)
Filmmaker(s): José Luis Garci

Film based on the characters of the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle. It tells a hypothetical meeting in Madrid between the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper.

Fight Clubs the literary creation, is important in the development of film, yet films that use his character do so without mining the cinematic possibilities. Now here is a film that does just that. It is by a famous Spanish literary figure, who has also...


Published December 12, 2022
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Looper (2012)
Hunted by your future, haunted by your past.
Filmmaker(s): Rian Johnson

In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but in 30 years it will have been. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target into the past where a looper, a hired gun, like Joe is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good until the day the mob decides to close the loop, sending back Joe's future self for assassination.

Annoyingly Trustworthy Monkey is all we must encounter; all else is urges. Narrative is built on this simple principle, usually with time forcing the cadence and agents with fate embodying the urges. So when time enters the story as a citizen, we have the opportunity...


Published May 13, 2022
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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The Hunger Games (2012)
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Filmmaker(s): Gary Ross

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. Part twisted entertainment, part government intimidation tactic, the Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains. Pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives, Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. The world will be watching.

More Games, Less Hunger am seeing this a second time with pre teenagers, close to the target market for the books I assume. I think for them, the film is serviceable and as they see the series the plot complications will be engaging. But it...


Published May 13, 2022
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Cloud Atlas (2012)
Everything is Connected

A set of six nested stories spanning time between the 19th century and a distant post-apocalyptic future. Cloud Atlas explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Action, mystery and romance weave through the story as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. Based on the award winning novel by David Mitchell. Directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis.

Arson I to worry about our future, it would be less about all the horrors that await than our ability to reason about them. There is a rather short tether between this and wonder about what we are doing to long form narrative. My own...


Published February 6, 2024
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Life of Pi (2012)
Believe The Unbelievable
Filmmaker(s): Ang Lee

The story of an Indian boy named Pi, a zookeeper's son who finds himself in the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck sets them adrift in the Pacific Ocean.

30 Million Sephiroth is it that Scorsese can get 3D so wrong and someone like Ang Lee get it so right? Sure, there is some dimensional silliness — a hummingbird in the first few moments...


Published February 8, 2024
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Mirror Mirror (I) (2012)
The Snow White legend comes alive.
Filmmaker(s): Tarsem Singh

After she spends all her money, an evil enchantress queen schemes to marry a handsome, wealthy prince. There's just one problem - he's in love with a beautiful princess, Snow White. Now, joined by seven rebellious dwarves, Snow White launches an epic battle of good vs. evil...

Strings, Surfaces really don’t care much that this is a failure. And gosh it seems to be. It is at least a rewarding and risky approach to framing. When you try adapting a known story, the only value the new storyteller can add it the framing,...


Published February 8, 2024
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The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
The untold story begins.
Filmmaker(s): Marc Webb

Peter Parker is an outcast high schooler abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents' disappearance – leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors, his father's former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors' alter ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero.

Genetic Splicing this after ‘’Dark Knight Rises’ is like moving from Saudi Arabia to Monaco. One is the vision of one man through close, very close collaborators. It takes chances, risks darkness. It has motion and noise, but as part of the world we happen upon. This...


Published February 9, 2024
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