The Phantom Devil You know, the very best film experiences are sometimes the ones that are the hardest work. If you don’t work at this one, you’ll be stuck at the John Carpenter level. But if you do… Consider it this way. Some movies are made by fundamentalist Christians as part of their battle with… Continue reading Exorcist: the Beginning (2004)
Tag: 2000s
Films released in the 2000s
Unmistakable Child (2008)
Unputdownable Tulku If you have not seen this, it documents from the cremation of a senior Buddhist monk to the certification of his reincarnation by the hierarchy though to the Dalai Lama, and subsequent installation in a monastery at about three. We follow the quest by the old monk’s most loyal follower, a dear soul.… Continue reading Unmistakable Child (2008)
The Illusionist (2006)
Flight Club We know what’s coming with this and we even know how. At least I think most viewers will. It is a con movie, but with more explicit folding. In the usual con genre, there is a mark who is fooled along with us the viewers. In this version, the con is literally a… Continue reading The Illusionist (2006)
Amélie (2001)
Life, A User’s Manual I avoided this film for ever-so-long because of what I had heard about it. One would believe that this is a well-photographed simple sweet story. That somehow it has something to do with the adventures of a sweet girl-woman. Well, it is. But it is so much else, and that ‘something… Continue reading Amélie (2001)
Triangle (2009)
Spilled Blue Paint for Water I love this stuff. Making stories is at root a challenge of surfing between the expected and known and the ambiguous surprise. The further you go into the world of non-linear sense, the more control and skill is required. If the filmmaker and viewer can negotiate a space that works,… Continue reading Triangle (2009)
21 Grams (2003)
Every Hair on your Head One of the key things a storyteller needs to decide is the tense of the story. Is it something that happened in the past, is happening now or will/could happen? Each of these bestows riches on a film and we have some masterpieces of each. Krzysztof Kieslowski explored these each… Continue reading 21 Grams (2003)
Rize (2005)
Their Space, My Breath I suppose there will be great numbers of viewers who will come away from this feeling good. The myth of the movie, pounded over and over, is that the art these kids devote themselves to elevates them, saves them. There are copious extra features on the disk where the same plodding… Continue reading Rize (2005)