FilmsFolded | Comments and Essays

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

How did we end up here?

Filmmaker(s): Alejandro González Iñárritu

A fading actor best known for his portrayal of a popular superhero attempts to mount a comeback by appearing in a Broadway play. As opening night approaches, his attempts to become more altruistic, rebuild his career, and reconnect with friends and family prove more difficult than expected.

05 Sep Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

Posted at 21:15h in IMDB Comments, Twos by admin 0 Comments

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Parasitic Nests I have a particular interest in five different cinematic styles, worlds actually. One of them I have named the Hispanic style. It is characterised by: elements of magical reality, either in supernatural physics or synchronous connections. a belief that the world is rich, fecund. Occasionally female...

Published September 5, 2023

| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
Tagged: 2010s, f2014, p2015

Bingo (1991)

More hip than humanly possible.

Filmmaker(s): Matthew Robbins

Bingo, the runaway circus dog, is off the leash and saving Chuckie's life! Bingo and the boy become the best of friends in this canine comedy featuring doggy disguises and skateboarding, pinball and prison. Chuckie and his parents are moving house, a thousand miles away, but Bingo won't be allowed to join them.

28 Aug Bingo (1991)

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The American Spirit One of the strongest influences in how a society imagines itself is film, and of films the strongest are where the characters are most abstract. Abstraction can be through cartoons or cartoonizing, stereotyping or extreme dramatizing. But the most elegant to my mind...

Published August 28, 2023

| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Ones |
Tagged: 1990s, f1991, p2004

Billy’s Balloon (1998)

Filmmaker(s): Don Hertzfeldt

Animation

Comedy

Thriller

A balloon wraps itself around a young child's hand, bringing him higher and higher, much to the child's delight, but a sinister truth begins to unravel.

27 Aug Billy’s Balloon (1998)

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Inflated This is a replacement comment. The original bothered a diligent reader, so I have made some expansion. Animation is like any film type: artists ally to certain philosophies, perhaps without realising it. In the case of animation, it bumps up against that great American invention, noir....

Published August 27, 2023

| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Ones |
Tagged: 1990s, f1998, p2005

Billy Elliott (2000)

Inside every one of us is a special talent waiting to come out. The trick is finding it.

Filmmaker(s): Stephen Daldry

Drama

Comedy

Music

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

27 Aug Billy Elliott (2000)

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Battle Dancer This is a replacement comment. Though the dance was passable here, the story is so vapid and unembellished, I sat there looking for another movie. And I found one, battling to get out. It was clever and true, overlooked because of the mediocrity placed in...

Published August 27, 2023

| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
Tagged: 2000s, f2000, p2010

Oppenheimer (2023)

27 Aug Oppenheimer (2023)

Posted at 17:10h in New Comments, Threes by admin 2 Comments

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Fours First let me remark on the film itself. Visually, Nolan continues his ‘dogma of performance’ where every decision is slanted toward reality except — predictably — the sex scenes. Structurally, he has mapped his philosophy of folded narrative onto basically four events with nested histories,...

Published August 27, 2023

| Categorised as New Comments, Threes |
Tagged: 2020s, f2023, p2023

The Big Sleep (1946)

The picture they were born for!

Filmmaker(s): Howard Hawks

Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.

12 Aug The Big Sleep (1946)

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Camera in the Head I’m an enthusiast of film, the kind of film that uses the uniquely cinematic qualities of the medium. From time to time, I see a non-cinematic film which I like. This is one such. By non-cinematic, I mean that the film is not...

Published August 12, 2023

| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: 1940s, f1946, p2003

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022)

A journey, in search of home.

Filmmaker(s): Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy

The unlikely friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse traveling together in the boy’s search for home.

06 Aug The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022)

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Ensnared The affirmative platitudes that anchor this are inescapable, and since they are relatively true, you may as well embrace them. My tween boys did, and I’m glad for it. But why I am recommending this is the art and animation. I have to admit that...

Published August 6, 2023

| Categorised as New Comments, Threes |
Tagged: 2020s, f2022, p2023

The New World (2005)

Once discovered, it was changed forever.

Filmmaker(s): Terrence Malick

Drama

History

Romance

A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.

06 Aug The New World (2005)

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Matoaka's Miranda (This comment was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user, because of some perceived religious slight.) Malick's method is to frame films as remembrances. Remembrances of romantic notions, whether freedom, peace, war or love (as his four films trace)....

Published August 6, 2023

| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: 2000s, f2005, p2006

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

So many gangsters… so little time.

Filmmaker(s): Stephen Chow

It's the 1940s, and the notorious Axe Gang terrorizes Shanghai. Small-time criminals Sing and Bone hope to join, but they only manage to make lots of very dangerous enemies. Fortunately for them, kung fu masters and hidden strength can be found in unlikely places. Now they just have to take on the entire Axe Gang.

06 Aug Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

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Comedic Self-reference You can read from others about the basic nature of this, and how widely it is admired and enjoyed. I myself admire and enjoy it. It is a movie about movies. Its something between a “Scary Movie” style parody and a “Charlie’s Angel’s” ...

Published August 6, 2023

| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: 2000s, f2004, p2006

King Lear (1987)

A breathtaking cast for you to discover …

Filmmaker(s): Jean-Luc Godard

Comedy

Drama

A descendant of Shakespeare tries to restore his plays in a world rebuilding itself after the Chernobyl catastrophe obliterates most of human civilization.

06 Aug King Lear (1987)

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English Recursion Meets French Semiotics Lear is about sight and truth, and incidentally about how devilish charms (derived from the audience's participation and perception) bend sight and truth. So it (and the similarly placed ‘The Tempest') are naturals for film, especially self-referential films about films and...

Published August 6, 2023

| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: 1980s, f1987, p2001