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Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Filmmaker(s): Charlie Kaufman

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

Death of a Playwright am thrilled by this film: all the wonderful narrative devices that I find delicious and engaging, and this time turned to have an effect on the viewer that is not to be lost lightly. He's wonderful. But I'm amazed at the writers...


Published November 30, 2024
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Tropic Thunder (2008)
Get Some.
Filmmaker(s): Ben Stiller

A group of self-absorbed actors set out to make the most expensive war film ever. After ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they encounter real bad guys.

Three, Five, Eight seen to be only eight ways for humans to reference themselves. Only 5 are considered possible though I have encountered six I believe. Rarely, three are present here. Robert Downey Jr is an actor on-screen. We never lose sight that it is he....


Published November 30, 2024
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Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
You lose some, you get some.
Filmmaker(s): Nicholas Stoller

When Sarah Marshall dumps aspiring musician Peter Bretter for rock star Aldous Snow, Peter's world comes crashing down. His best friend suggests that Peter should get away from everything and to fly off to Hawaii to escape all his problems. After arriving in Hawaii and meeting the beautiful Rachel Jansen, Peter is shocked to see not only Aldous Snow in Hawaii, but also Sarah Marshall.

Puppets has jokes that often work. It has a genuine pathos that is surprisingly rare and is now the trademark of Apatow productions. It has Hawaii and two women, one pretty the other a beauty. It has a deftly comic foil in the “other boyfriend.”...


Published November 28, 2022
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Vantage Point (2008)
8 strangers. 8 points of view. 1 truth.
Filmmaker(s): Pete Travis

The attempted assassination of the American president is told and re-told from several different perspectives.

Unbraided what a seductive idea. Gosh what a spasm of waste. The problem is that clever ideas were borrowed and spliced together with no annealing. So we have this business of recorded movies and the movie we watch overlap. The movies within are by Forrest Whitaker...


Published May 13, 2022
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In Bruges (2008)
Shoot first. Sightsee later.
Filmmaker(s): Martin McDonagh

Ray and Ken, two hit men, are in Bruges, Belgium, waiting for their next mission. While they are there they have time to think and discuss their previous assignment. When the mission is revealed to Ken, it is not what he expected.

The Setup are a lot of writerly things going on with this script. Most of them are standard devices. Almost too standard. But there is something I noticed. The spoiler here is that the story takes over by the very end and the structure of the...


Published September 23, 2022
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The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
The battle for eternity is the fantasy of a lifetime.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Minkoff

An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

The Dance a film considered the ordinary way, this is ordinary. It has a common framing device that folds the narrative: a wimpy kid rents lots of Kung Fu movies. Then he enters those movies which here are conflated with dreams. Pretty ordinary by recent...


Published October 23, 2022
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Immokalee U. S. A (2008)

Volunteer Growth films are a matter of manufactured narrative and we watch them to to discover what has been shaped by the filmmaker. Most documentaries are like this as well, because the idea is to illustrate a constructed narrative with reality, giving it more power. But...


Published October 27, 2022
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iMurders (2008)
No one is safe in cyberspace
Filmmaker(s): Robbie Bryan

A mysterious love triangle leads to a tragic shooting. Months later, eight members of a MySpace-esque chat room are being gruesomely murdered in the privacy of their own homes.

Kernel Panic know what? This is pretty incompetent in a few ways, but the incompetence works for it. This is a murder mystery of the old school. You are introduced to characters. Murders are being committed. Clues are placed around. Many suspects and many motives are...


Published October 28, 2022
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Glitch (2008)
Filmmaker(s): Randy Daudlin

A trio of brainboxes create a cell phone chip that allows telepathic communication. But when the experiment goes wrong and power falls into the wrong hands, the results are terrifying.

Canine Cells is bad in all the ordinary ways. The idea is bad and the general setup. The science is bad. But many of the background characters are worthwhile. The usual pattern for these cartoony projects is to have the main characters operate in an environmental...


Published November 20, 2022
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Flash of Genius (2008)
Corporations have time, money, and power on their side. All Bob Kearns had was the truth.
Filmmaker(s): Marc Abraham

In this David vs. Goliath drama based on a true story, college professor Robert Kearns goes up against the giants of the auto industry when they fail to give him credit for inventing intermittent windshield wipers. Kearns doggedly pursues recognition for his invention, as well as the much-deserved financial rewards for the sake of his wife and six kids.

Wipeout are all sorts of fabulous interminglings between film and life. At a general level, I study these things. But when “life” is meant in the sense of historical truth, and the film purports to represent that, then the examination gets a bits boring. Okay,...


Published November 20, 2022
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