DIE HARDER in the White House with a Vengeance. WHITE HOUSE DOWN (released June 2013) was sold as the “comedic” version of OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (March 2013). Is that why we’re laughing AT it? Not that we can even differentiate them; both are the same level of serious, and the same height of stupidity. With the exact same outcome – … Read More
BATMAN RETURNS
The Bat, The Cat and The Fat. Something happened between BATMAN and BATMAN RETURNS. The eighties had ended, George H.W. Bush ended his one-term presidency, CGI was invented, and director Tim Burton was so depressed about all these things that the tears in his eyes must’ve clouded his Dark Knight vision. Crooked businessman Max Shreck makes an underground freak, The … Read More
MANHATTAN
Allen’s Town. On the island city of MANHATTAN, Woody Allen’s masterful study of how every person is an island. Opening montage is enough to make you want to move there; a scintillating montage of the Manhattan skyline, the streets, the people, the shops and streetside vendors, from the scum to the scenic, Allen’s narration starting out purposely melodramatic and settling … Read More
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
X-eunt in X-asperation. Action without heart. Spectacle without logic. Brawn without brains. Director Brett Ratner balances on Bryan Singer’s shoulders, attempting to hold up the mutant world Singer so reverently rendered in X-MEN (2000) and X-MEN UNITED (2003). But he falls off – and helms X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, the third in the x-franchise, with as much reverence and talent … Read More