The Diary I am thankful that Clooney is working. I’ve heard him speak as himself; he is a good man, interested in good things. I forgive him his lack of range as an actor, because the characters he plays are so engaging. And he made “Good Night, and Good Luck.” That film was based on… Continue reading Monuments Men (2014)
Tag: p2014
Comments first posted in 2014
Under the Skin (2013)
Seduction A fair enough way to divide filmviewers is between those that come for a coherent sequence of facts (to call a story) and those that come for an experience induced by any means. Most films address both communities, but grand experiments in contrasting the two can be powerful. For me, the greatest evocation of… Continue reading Under the Skin (2013)
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Intelligent Agency I was impressed by a few features of the first one. Most notably, it was a risk for them to adopt and extend a certain cinematic technique in such a high risk project. I wrote about the effect: having battle scenes with only a part of the action visible, either in the cut… Continue reading Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
In The Night Garden (2007-2009)
Inception There seems to be quite a consensus that this doesn’t have any educational value. Such a stance presumes that kids need explicit teaching and preaching. Either you need to include an alphabet in your song like Sesame Street or have some obvious moral conclusion. How silly. Kids learn by what they see of how… Continue reading In The Night Garden (2007-2009)
Her (2013)
Wild Things One recipe for a whole narrative is to create a world, a character and a situation, each affecting the others while containing them. It is a hard, hard thing to do cinematically, but look at what has been done here. The world is conveyed by our character passing through it. It is a… Continue reading Her (2013)
The GrandMaster (2013)
Uppercut I’ve been in training of a sort and unable to view serious movies, so it was difficult to arrange for this, and the anticipation built. Now I regret not having prepared better. Filmmaking for me is calligraphy on water. A filmmaker’s art can be in the shape of what is written. Nolan, for example… Continue reading The GrandMaster (2013)