Lens Flare I’ve put Abrams in the same category as Soderbergh and Kubrick but only as a junior member. These are directors that do all the production stuff excellently, but whose creative life is in what the camera brings. They see the film not as storyboards (like, say Spielberg) but as the dynamic vision the… Continue reading Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Tag: 2010s
Films made in the 2010s
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Dimension Common sense hits the front office at Marvel’s adventure in moviemaking. Until now, they’ve just made bad films. Bad. The basic problem, I believe, is that the rest of the world is out exploiting the third dimension and Marvel insists on making flat movies. Even Spidermen, where the character lives and fights in space… Continue reading Iron Man 2 (2010)
Hereafter (2010)
Chabrolet At a certain point in some filmmakers’ careers, the films cease being discrete works of art and start becoming chapters in an engaging life. Eastwood is not the most weighty artist out there. He has made a couple worthwhile films and much chaff but has developed a growing reputation for cleanliness and efficiency, both… Continue reading Hereafter (2010)
The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
Two Worlds We live in two worlds with usually hidden doors between. One world is unexpectedly complex, powerful and cosmic in an apparently demented way. The second world we have to put up with. It is a world of rote mechanics and faux imagination. That first world is the world of Phil Dick, something I… Continue reading The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Precision Convoy I really have to give the producers credit for how they have tuned this franchise. At some point, the formula will have to outlive Diesel like Bond had to survive after Connery. The fans won’t abandon the series but as with Bond, the constraints will get ever tighter. In the meanwhile, this is… Continue reading Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
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 watcher in, in some way. The least interesting is when a film overtly quotes another.… Continue reading Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
The Great Wall (2016)
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 visual music. But here it seems that he got into… Continue reading The Great Wall (2016)
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
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 watcher in, in some way. The least interesting is when… Continue reading Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Okja (2017)
All Rind I differentiate between storyteller/filmmakers and the story itself. It isn’t such a clean break as this of course; the narrative contract inveigles. But the distinction is useful here. He has a scope that he is interested in which could be described as: navigating the pull against a world that presents as capricious evil.… Continue reading Okja (2017)
Free Solo (2018)
Needy Films are stories. When the story is in the real world, a different set of narrative engineering principles come in to play. A default is that somehow the filmmaker and crew present their own story of the quest for what we separately see. But there is a problem in this case; the crew has… Continue reading Free Solo (2018)