07.14.14 |
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Lucy O’ Brien for IGN:
Ultimately, it was Burton’s faithfulness to the spirit of the comic book material that proved to be ’89 Batman’s most endearing legacy. While it didn’t immediately lift comic book movies to the lofty position they enjoy today – there were a couple of devastating fumbles before Bryan Singer caught the ball with X-Men in 2000 and ran with it – Burton was the first to prove that digging into pre-existing comic book properties in earnest could prove incredibly fruitful.
It’s an influence that can be felt today more than ever.
07.09.14 |
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More on Michael Bay and Transformers 4, this time from the great Film Crit Hulk (and for those new to his writing, the all caps isn’t a mistake, it’s an editorial choice on Hulk’s part):
EVERY TIME HULK SEES A MICHAEL BAY MOVIE HULK IS REMINDED THAT HE DOES THESE KINDS OF THINGS. WHICH, PERHAPS IN A SAD WAY, CONSTANTLY REMINDS HULK THAT HE IS ONE OF THE MOST WEIRDLY FASCINATING FILMMAKERS ON THE PLANET. PLEASE DON’T MISTAKE THAT FOR A STATEMENT IMPLYING HIS FILMS ARE WORTH SEEING OR ARE ACTIVELY FASCINATING TO WATCH. NO, THEY ARE OVERLONG, BORING SLOGFESTS THAT SPEW SO MUCH HATEFUL, SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC AND RACIST GARBAGE ALL UNDER THE PRETENSE OF THAT WINKING “THIS IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE” BRAND OF HUMOR THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO GO OUT INTO THE LOBBY AND RECONCILE YOUR HUMANITY FOR A WHILE.
07.07.14 |
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Slashfilm’s David Chen:
If there is such a thing as cinema as Soderbergh describes it, then Age of Extinction is a perfect distillation of anti-cinema. It posits that films no longer need a coherent plot, character development, or action scenes that have tension and stakes in order to be successful. That economic considerations no longer need to be hidden or subtle — they can be brazen and attention-grabbing. That excess in every respect (runtime, municipal destruction, manchild behavior) is not a vice, but a virtue.
05.09.14 |
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Regardless of your thoughts on Nicholas Wending Refn’s Only God Forgives (I have mostly mixed to negative feelings), it’s a visually assured, at times stunning work with its slow dolly shots and strong primary color usage. So it’s really interesting to see how much visual effects played into post production, and not just for the violent scenes. There’s some otherwise mundane yet critical touches, like removing all traces of dolly tracks to give the effect of a floating, dream-like camera, or editing out a small ceiling fan to distract from an actor’s performance.
As a warning, there’s a lot of very grisly, bloody content highlighted in this video (NSFW).
04.25.14 |
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Film columnist and writer Niles Schwartz:
An attitude of the entire trilogy deals with how all corruption is equal. As Michael (Al Pacino) tells Senator Pat Geary (G.D. Spradlin) in Part II, “We’re both a part of the same hypocrisy,” and then later speaking of the political bodies combating him in Part III, “Italian politics have had these men for centuries. They’re the true mafia.” The opening of The Godfather, romance though it is, speaks the same sentiment as the prologue in the more anthropologically-correct prologue of Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas, where Henry Hill narrates, “What the organization is offering is protection for people who can’t go to the cops. That’s it, what the FBI could never get. Like a police department for wise guys.”
04.04.14 |
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I haven’t revisited Alien for quite a while. But Ridley Scott’s classic has aged extremely well, and it’s influence on modern sci-fi and horror tropes is undeniable; smart analysis is always welcome. This video essay by Steven Benedict is exactly that; it hits on some major themes while not overstaying itself welcome.
04.02.14 |
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A four minute super cut of scenes from Michael Mann movies? Count me in.
03.20.14 |
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Film awards season is well behind us, but this Vanity Fair convincingly argues why the Oscars, and to a lesser extent most acting awards, tend to favor the relatable over the cool and unreadable.
03.14.14 |
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This typographic blog post has already been passed around tech and design circles, but it’s absolutely worth a look if you haven’t seen it. The subject matter is 2009’s Moon and it’s cool to see a lot of futuristic fonts in discussion. You’ll probably learn something about Eurostyle; I had no idea there were variants (like Microstyle) that deviated slightly from the original typeface.
03.13.14 |
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Six minutes of Criterion Collection staff making classic films gorgeous? Sold. Keep your eye on the whole Gizmodo video collection on Vimeo while you’re at it; it’s uniformly smart content.