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 I come to any version of Sherlock because… Continue reading Sherlock! (2010)
Tag: p2011
Comments first posted in 2011
Be Glad… (1970)
Woven Tongues I encountered one of those popular psychology ideas recently, the one that says that the music that was on the radio when you were 13 determines your taste in music. I supposed it could be true. I have a deeply sculpted life in cinema but music just flows in to be ‘liked’ or… Continue reading Be Glad… (1970)
Ballets Russes (2005)
Dancer’s Eyes I haven’t enjoyed a movie this much in years. One filmmaking challenge I have been puzzling over for years is how to film dance. It is not enough to have a camera placed in a stationary place as if sitting in a theatre looking at a stage. When I am at a physical… Continue reading Ballets Russes (2005)
Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
Circular Breathing I knew this filmmaker from “10 Canoes,” which was pretty delicate. I had also heard a variety of things about this film, but still I was not prepared for how deep the adventure would go. Most folks seem to comment on the character and his journey; it has some engaging moments and supposedly… Continue reading Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
Arthur (2011)
A Matter of Worlds Remakes embed a history of abstraction, so even though both the concerned films may be trivial and uninteresting, the story of their difference can be quite engaging. The original was simply constructed based on the drunk redemption story spliced onto the flexible rubber of romantic comedy. It was something of a… Continue reading Arthur (2011)
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
WETA Gold There are only three ways to turn on your mind. The third is too dangerous to even sketch. The most common is to allow it to do what it wants, tracing known pathways and presenting known patterns. All imagination comes home to rest. But then there is art, which in my book is… Continue reading The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
Kagbeni (2008)
Open Fist This is a Nepali movie, loosely based on the 1902 horror short story The Monkey’s Paw. The name is a district in Nepal; the film is the director’s first. The reason for a Nepalese film to be made is the same in Nepal as anywhere in the developing world. Films validate a people,… Continue reading Kagbeni (2008)
All that Jazz (1979)
Your Death Having just watched an energetic, colourful film on the overlap between life and death, I had to revisit this one from my past. It was one of my early experiences in folded narrative: • a film about a man written and directed by that very man, bent to create a fictitious persona. •… Continue reading All that Jazz (1979)
A Movie With Me in It (2008)
Interesting and Uninteresting Muddles Once again, we have a script concept that is promising enough to matter. Once again, we have an inept film built on that idea, inept because the writer wanted to be in it. The overall shape is an ordinary, explicit fold: one buddy is a blocked film writer, the other an… Continue reading A Movie With Me in It (2008)
Antichrist (2009)
Contagious Brokenness Down the road from me is a coven of Christian filmmakers. It is a school and the purpose is to make films that evangelise. This fascinates me; generally their stories are about fighting the devil, a narrative that encompasses both what is in the film and what surrounds the making of the film.… Continue reading Antichrist (2009)