The Skull in the Livingroom Here is a strange idea for a documentary. Make a movie about why movies work, why we cling to them and how they invent our humanity. Tell a story about storytelling. It is put together by a man who himself is a good storyteller; he is presumably a good teacher.… Continue reading How Art Made the World (2005-)
Tag: f2005
Films released in 2005
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Gossamer Connections I’m like most people I guess. For me, there are movies that are “just” movies, things I enter for fun. And there are others I enter as part of lucid living, what are usually called “art” films. Its an artificial division that exists only because of the accidents of market forces that channel… Continue reading Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
King Kong (2005)
The Tempest We can all celebrate. Jackson has now solidly replaced Spielberg. Most folks know that the 1933 “Kong” changed the world in fundamental ways. The world of movie imagination was in its earliest phases, so quite apart from the innovations of animation and dramatic scoring, the engineering of the narrative was radical and important… Continue reading King Kong (2005)
House of Wax (2005)
Melted Me A good movie may be like anything else: long periods of ordinariness with a few memorable bits. We tend to recall and savour only those memorable bits. For me, that was this movie. Yes, it was ordinary: hokey, stupid, bad acting and such. Yes, the very idea of this genre puts the viewer… Continue reading House of Wax (2005)
Be Cool (2005)
Acting Cool We are born into the doom of being actors. If we are lucky we discover who we are but until then we go through a process of acting a role. Some movies play with this idea, and “Get Shorty” was one of the most clever of these. It had two elements: that notion… Continue reading Be Cool (2005)
Junebug (2005)
July This is ostensibly a movie in the old, Cassavetes tradition. I’m not a fan of Cassavetes, because he wasn’t very good at being himself. But what he indicated was a certain honesty, a sure translucency of character, beings so open that we inhabit them instead of watching actors do so. And that’s what this… Continue reading Junebug (2005)
The Amityville Horror (2005)
The House I don’t know why writers and filmmakers so often miss the point. The genre is the haunted house movie, and it exists for a very good reason. The most primitive fears are not of things or people but of situations. Of situations, and the ones we remember are fears of places. It isn’t… Continue reading The Amityville Horror (2005)
Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)
Visits With a project like this, it is as likely that it is a random goof as something with some structure. It could be both. As this was sent to me by a fellow viewer, and because I am so inclined, I tend to see structure. And what I see I like — a lot.… Continue reading Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)
Fantastic Four (2005)
Two and a half We are seeing a new genre be invented and the process is quite thrilling. No one really knows what the genre will actually be, what it will look like and what few things will characterise it. So dozens of teams take stabs at it. Most will fail so utterly (like this… Continue reading Fantastic Four (2005)
In Her Shoes (2005)
Dislexika Once you know chronic problems faced by certain trades, you will notice how some projects reach to do some necessary thing. For instance, filming people around a dinner table is rarely done well, and almost never with great effect. So watch what the filmmaker does to change the geometry so that the shot can… Continue reading In Her Shoes (2005)