Song for the Unsung. A high-pitched drone of violins imperceptibly morphs into the far-off air-scream of a diving German fighter plane. From the expanse of grey sky, a jot of shrill steel, growing into an engine roar, swelling into machine gun slaughter over a beach where 400,000 Allied soldiers huddle, stranded by circumstance, packed like lemmings, waiting for deliverance on … Read More
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE
Dawn of the Golden Age of Superhero Movies. …if Jesus was alive today and walked on water, it would be instantly on YouTube… And the first Comment would be: “Fag.” — Bill Maher. There is a scene in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE where Batman turns a corner in his Batmobile and runs headlong into Superman blocking him in … Read More
INTERSTELLAR
Odyssey Three: When Surfer Dudes Boldly Go… In his 2014 Oscar speech, Matthew McConaughey told us his hero was “himself, in ten years’ time.” Everyone thought he was a narcissistic jackass. Until INTERSTELLAR, when he travels to the future through a wrinkle in time and meets – himself! Standing lofty on the shoulders of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and CONTACT, … Read More
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Darkest Knight. 60 years ago writer-director Christopher Nolan would have been one of the premier exponents of film noir. Conceptually and cinematically, his DARK KNIGHT trilogy is one of the most somber excursions into dual personality crises, moral relativism, vigilantism and nihilism. And Batman would have been Humphrey Bogart. “Here’s lookin’ at you, Gotham…” Just as dour as Bogart, Christian … Read More
MAN OF STEEL
Kneel Before Steel. Darkness, moral ambiguity, self-doubt, wearing underpants inside the trousers: these are things not commonly associated with Superman. But in MAN OF STEEL, the newest Superman vehicle, this heretical new direction is what we get – like it or not. But Poffy likey. The bedrock of Superman canon has been preserved (Krypton exploding, Kal-El sent to Earth, super … Read More
INCEPTION
Dreaming in Black and Baby Blue. Who was it that said, “Leo is soooo dreamy”? Everyone. So what’s all the fuss over INCEPTION? It’s Leo being dreamy; that is, appearing in people’s dreams. And hasn’t Leo appeared in ALL our dreams at some point? Ahem! Onward… Written, produced and directed by Christopher Nolan, INCEPTION proves once again that while everyone … Read More
THE DARK KNIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good knight… Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. – Dylan Thomas If Batman is the untamed world, The Joker is the unbalanced world. THE DARK KNIGHT tells us humanity lives somewhere in between. … Read More
THE PRESTIGE
Nolan’s Real Magic. Godard’s Dictum: The cinema is truth 24 frames per second. Rejoinder: The cinema is illusion, is lying 24 frames per second. THE PRESTIGE is everything THE ILLUSIONIST wanted to be – and claimed to be in its trailers – an unholy tale of a magician seeking arcane Real Magic. Overarching the magic, a tale of two men … Read More
MEMENTO
The Reverse Genius Principle. 9) And that’s when we realize we could never be sure of anything to begin with. 8) When Leonard eventually thinks he has found his wife’s killer, eleventh-hour reveals shock us with the possibility that his whole crisis may be nothing more than delusion. 7) Editing MEMENTO must have been like navigating inside Las Vegas hotels with … Read More
BATMAN BEGINS
Dark Knight Reconstructionist Theory. Droves of bats against an ocher sunset, teasing out the infamous Bat Logo on the sky with their swarming bodies; the first five seconds of BATMAN BEGINS are scintillating. Then it just keeps getting better. If there is bedrock truth in the axiom, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” then surely the inverse is also … Read More