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13 Assassins (2010)
Take up your sword.
Filmmaker(s): Takashi Miike

A bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.

The Rustic in the Woods are some directors that you just consider geniuses. They innovate, walking into new modes, vocabularies. My list of these artists is short. They greatly enrich because they expand and challenge. Other filmmakers may be talented and even capable of making personal...


Published December 6, 2022
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Space Battleship Yamato (2010)
The legendary sci-fi animation, a live-action film at last.
Filmmaker(s): Takashi Yamazaki

In 2199, five years after the Gamilons began an invasion of Earth, the planet has been ravaged by the aliens' bombs. The remnants of humanity have fled underground to escape the irradiated surface. One day, former pilot Susumu Kodai discovers a capsule sent from the planet Iscandar that tells of a device that can remove the radiation from the Earth's surface. The Earth Defense Force rebuilds the battleship Yamato with a new type of propulsion system to make the 148,000 light year trip to Iscandar in hopes of saving the Earth. Within one year, the radiation will drive the rest of humanity to extinction.

Teen Explosions been doing a lot of thinking lately about what the necessary ingredients may be for a successful space travel-centric sci-fi movie. ‘Interstellar’ used a device to place the images in the past, leveraging established movie notions. That was a movie that referenced and...


Published December 10, 2022
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127 hours (2010)
There is no force more powerful than the will to live.
Filmmaker(s): Danny Boyle

The true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah.

The Hand Left in the Thing are so many filmmakers out there that I am still approaching many films the way they were intended to be approached: as self-contained works of art (or craft). But there are some filmmakers I know well enough to trust...


Published December 15, 2022
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Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express (2010)
Filmmaker(s): Philip Martin

Loco Motives Olivier was an actor who delivered rewards, but acting is not storytelling and sometimes the opposite is the case. He made a well regarded Hamlet and approached it as expected; he inhabited the character and let that being drive what was presented. If...


Published December 25, 2022
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Knight and Day (2010)
Every Hit Man Deserves a Second Shot!
Filmmaker(s): James Mangold

A fugitive couple goes on a glamorous and sometimes deadly adventure where nothing and no one – even themselves – are what they seem. Amid shifting alliances and unexpected betrayals, they race across the globe, with their survival ultimately hinging on the battle of truth vs. trust.

The True Power Source things work in spite of themselves. Like the Agency depicted, this film is its own worst enemy, clumsily shooting itself at random opportunities. It should simply self-destruct. This is one of those films-by-frightened-committee that are rewritten and reshot in progress, so...


Published March 2, 2023
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Sherlock! (2010)
A new sleuth for the 21st century.
Filmmaker(s): Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat

A modern update finds the famous sleuth and his doctor partner solving crime in 21st century London.

Logical Circularity This comment applies to the three, presumably the only three episodes of the BBC Sherlock! (The trend seems to be to modernise famed detectives and so denote with an exclamation point.) (After this comment was written, there would be more) I come to this as...


Published September 11, 2023
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Black Swan (2010)
Perfection is not just about control. It's also about letting go.
Filmmaker(s): Darren Aronofsky

A journey through the psyche of a young ballerina whose starring role as the duplicitous swan queen turns out to be a part for which she becomes frighteningly perfect.

The Math I encountered “Pi,” I was profoundly upset. It happened again with “Beautiful Mind” and “Good Will,” other films about mathematical imagination. How, I wondered, could something as inherently cinematic as the mathematical imagination be so clumsily handled? How is it that the only...


Published January 19, 2024
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Iron Man 2 (2010)
It's not the armor that makes the hero, but the man inside.
Filmmaker(s): Jon Favreau

With the world now aware of his dual life as the armored superhero Iron Man, billionaire inventor Tony Stark faces pressure from the government, the press and the public to share his technology with the military. Unwilling to let go of his invention, Stark, with Pepper Potts and James 'Rhodey' Rhodes at his side, must forge new alliances – and confront powerful enemies.

Dimension sense hits the front office at Marvel's adventure in movie-making. 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,...


Published January 19, 2024
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Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
Humanity's Lost Masterpiece... in 3D
Filmmaker(s): Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting.

Lutheran Dead Sea Scrolls I sincerely love the commitment that Herzog has made to a cinematic life, and I will follow every chapter. And I am deeply invested in the creative history of man, and what we have of his/her art. Also — but quite independently —...


Published January 22, 2024
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Catfish (2010)
Don't let anyone tell you what it is.

Nev, a 24-year-old New York-based photographer, has no idea what he's in for when Abby, an eight-year-old girl from rural Michigan, contacts him on Facebook, seeking permission to paint one of his photographs. When he receives her remarkable painting, Nev begins a friendship and correspondence with Abby's family. But things really get interesting when he develops a cyber-romance with Abby's attractive older sister, Megan, a musician and model. Prompted by some startling revelations about Megan, Nev and his buddies embark on a road trip in search of the truth.

Deceptions at face value, this is a documentary about how a young photographer was deceived by a lonely housewife. How he gently confronts her, discovers her desperate existence and gets a tearful apology. The way it unfolds is engaging. We do allow this woman some latitude...


Published January 22, 2024
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