text reviews
From Cliffhangers to TopSpinners via INCEPTION
August 27th, 2010
The term “cliffhanger” emerged between the early 1900s and 1937 in silent films, featuring (according to Wikipedia) “a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction… hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the [...]
Waking from INCEPTION
August 24th, 2010
“What’s the most resilient parasite? An Idea. A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules.”
What is Christopher Nolan REALLY trying to tell us with his arguable masterpiece of cinema that made the box office wake up with a start this summer? With [...]
A SHINING Overlook with Stanley
July 13th, 2010
My wife and I took a road trip from Seattle to Colorado and up into Wyoming to attend a conference and see Yellowstone National Park. With a rented Mustang convertible and over 9 hours of classic rock inspired by the television show Supernatural courtesy of our friend Dean (not THAT Dean), we found a cinema [...]
IRON MAN 2: The Legacy of Howard Stark
May 19th, 2010
All I can give you is my knowledge. – Howard Stark
From the opening, smirking speech Tony delivers at the beginning of Iron Man 2 to old newsreel footage of the impetuous Stark’s very 50s father, “legacy” is a key theme of the film (as mentioned in our inaugural video review). What kind of legacy are we [...]
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN’s ponderous ponderosa
April 22nd, 2010
I saw it, and – SHOCK! – I’m not gay. I know that a strange contingent of the conservative Christian community seems to think that by the mere watching of a film like Brokeback Mountain – with its “homosexual agenda” – a straight guy might develop a queer eye, but nothing could be further from the [...]
Weak God, Limp Lucifer & Wooden Jesus
April 15th, 2010
Although we discussed imperfect Greek gods, and modern myths of a “more fallible Creator” in the last post, the new Clash of the Titans DOES stray from classic polytheism and polarizes the war between Zeus and Hades; save for a few scenes, the rest of the pantheon is scarce. It’s a much more westernized, even [...]
Perseus damns the gods (Thank God!)
April 13th, 2010
The gods need US! They need our prayers! – Cassiopeia, Clash of the Titans
I mentioned in the first Clash of the Titans post that we’d address one of the film’s taglines: “damn the gods”. The queen of Argos speaks brazenly about the Greek pantheon of “gods” that rules over them in this remake of the [...]
Clash of the CLASH of the Titans…
April 9th, 2010
I was SO not impressed. Why did we need a remake of Clash of the Titans? And what about that inaugural tagline: “Titans will Clash”? Ugh, with a marketing team like that on other films we might have had taglines like “War in the Stars” or “Man will Iron 2″. Besides, the ORIGINAL Clash of the [...]
Faith & Sight in The BOOK OF ELI
March 30th, 2010
As we finish our 3-shot review on The Book of Eli (click here for part 1) this last part includes SPOILERS. Curiously enough, I’d read the screenplay prior to seeing the film, knew the twist ending, and still loved it. The “reveal”, though intriguing, didn’t make the movie for me. My final spoiler-laden thoughts are [...]
3 Deep cuts & 3 fun slices of ELI
March 22nd, 2010
In our opening post on The Book of Eli (click here), I promised to carve out 3 points the film makes about man, religious power, and God, so let’s continue:
1. The heat of life brings people’s true nature to the surface…
“When the chips are down, these ‘civilized’ people will eat each other. You’ll see. I’ll [...]