[This post was originally written 29th August 2016]
I honestly thought I was going to come out hating this more than I did TERMINATOR GENISYS (funningly enough also starring Jai Courtney). But to my wonder I didn’t; although I didn’t love it either.
[This post was originally written 11th October 2016]
I honestly didn’t know that this year would’ve made me want to grab life and make something of it, and the main reason for it would have been SWISS ARMY MAN.
[This is an altered version of a post originally featured on Hidden Remote]
THE VANISHING OF SIDNEY HALL is a film where I can feel all the cogs trying to make me like it. The cast and cinematography are great but it is a very manipulative film, which it can’t hide, very much like the eponymous character’s novels.
[This is an altered version of a post originally featured on Hidden Remote]
Steven Spielberg sometimes ends up releasing two films in the same year. In 1993, it was JURASSIC PARK and SCHINDLER’S LIST. In 1997, it was AMISTAD and THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK. In 2005, it was MUNICH and WAR OF THE WORLDS. Now, in 2018, it’s THE POST and the soon to be released READY PLAYER ONE. There’s an ongoing theme here, the popular and the serious. The drama and the spectacle.
[This is an altered version of a post originally featured on Hidden Remote]
Aaron Sorkin has been writing for TV and movies for a long, long time. It is only now that he makes the move from page to camera in his first directorial effort, MOLLY’S GAME.
Jessica Chastain stars as Molly Bloom, a woman who ends up running one of the highest stake poker games in the world. This is a true story like much of Sorkin’s film work (MONEYBALL, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR), and yet doesn’t feel like many true-to-life stories.
[This is an altered version of a post originally featured on Hidden Remote]
British comedy seems to have a certain way with blackly dark subjects. 2010’s FOUR LIONS was a comedy, albeit a dark one, about characters who are suicide bombers looking to blow up the London Marathon. The Death of Stalin applies the same kind of British comedic sensibilities to one of history’s darkest periods, Stalinist Russia.
[This is an altered version of a post originally featured on Hidden Remote]
The eighth feature film from one the most talented working directors today, PHANTOM THREAD is another Paul Thomas Anderson film which can be considered a masterpiece. Daniel Day-Lewis stars in his last film before retirement as fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock, and his relationship with his new muse Alma (played by Vicky Krieps).
[This is an altered version of a post originally featured on Hidden Remote]
Wheelman has a high concept idea, but played out at a stripped down level. Money being stolen, with cars bottling it down the street. At the end of the day though it’s about a guy driving a car trying to get out of a bad situation. This simplicity is its strength.
This series focuses on the one and only Michael Bay. Attempting to deconstruct his filmography, one film at a time. The ideas explored here may or may not end up in my Dissertation about Michael Bay and Post-Cinema (if I inevitably decide to do my MSc Dissertation on this topic).
And to answer the question: Does it ever rain in a Michael Bay movie?
Here we go again. It is 2022, and we get a new Michael Bay movie AND a new Roland Emmerich movie. And not just any kind of Emmerich movie, but a disaster movie. The genre in which Emmerich attempts to outdo all that came before.
After ending the world (again) in 2012, how else can he go bigger? Well in INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE he revisited the alien invaders that skyrocketed his name into the Blockbuster pantheon. And it was unmemorable (I honestly cannot remember anything about the sequel..), and left a sour taste in the mouth.
MOONFALL on the otherhand, well… it has the Moon falling into the Earth. Yeah…
18 years after REVOLUTIONS, we go back to where it all began. Back to THE MATRIX. But going back is not as simple as repeating. The pull and push of creativity and finance is less forgiving than ever. And for a filmmaker like Lana Wachowski (and her sister Lilly), how does Hollywood, the audience, play within that?
I have seen/heard comparisons with GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH and WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE, in how this fourth entry is more interested in the text around the film, and not the lore of itself. I would also add in THE LEGO MOVIE as a favourable comparison, and bring up the worst ‘film’ I have ever seen SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY.
Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. Lets talk about THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
SUPERATOMOVISION 