Companion as Place Why does this earn a special space in my heart? It is a romantic comedy after all, deliberately designed to be discarded. The genre is defined by the attractiveness of a superficial love; the easy way problems are resolved and the balance of designed soulmates restored. This film follows the mandated pattern:… Continue reading Top End Wedding (2019)
Tag: p2019
Comments first posted in 2019
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Reflective Engagement I normally write about folding; the most obvious is when a film contains a film or play, but there are a bewildering number of types. The most interesting of these to me is when the film ‘folds’ the watcher in, in some way. The least interesting is when a film overtly quotes another.… Continue reading Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Folded Vision, Urges and Space Reflective Engagement I normally write about folding; the most obvious is when a film contains a film or play, but there are a bewildering number of types. The most interesting of these to me is when the film ‘folds’ the watcher in, in some way. The least interesting is when… Continue reading Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Okja (2017)
All Rind I differentiate between storyteller/filmmakers and the story itself. It isn’t such a clean break as this of course; the narrative contract inveigles. But the distinction is useful here. He has a scope that he is interested in which could be described as: navigating the pull against a world that presents as capricious evil.… Continue reading Okja (2017)
Free Solo (2018)
Needy Films are stories. When the story is in the real world, a different set of narrative engineering principles come in to play. A default is that somehow the filmmaker and crew present their own story of the quest for what we separately see. But there is a problem in this case; the crew has… Continue reading Free Solo (2018)
Overboard (2018)
Organic Endearment This is formulaic in the basics: two people repel each other, fall in love, have a complicating development, profess love in some public, dramatic way and are reconciled. Such things usually depend on the appeal of the characters and the supporting comedy. But I think this has something else going for it. It… Continue reading Overboard (2018)
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
The Last Supper’s Table If you come to this for the much advertised fight choreography or exciting chase scenes, you will be disappointed. We’ve seen more exciting of each many times. There’s no new ground here, no stunts in the Tom Cruise sense to speak of. No risks at all. Fightwise the only novelty we… Continue reading John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
The Sinister Monk (1965)
4 Conspiracies In the heyday of mystery writing, we had Sayers, Christie, Chesterton and a dozen others who were artists of narrative curves. The game was to create a world, but us in it and only later let us know how wrong we were. And then we had formula pulp writers, many of whom had… Continue reading The Sinister Monk (1965)