Out to own today:
MAN OF STEEL
“You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders,” Jor-El
Now, cards on the table, I do love a strikingly made noisy blockbuster (e.g. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS or THE AVENGERS or INDEPENDENCE DAY). However, pleasure is not derived from the nonsensical kind (TRANSFORMERS or BATTLESHIP or IRON MAN 3). How many attempts have there now been, on both the small and silver screens, at interpreting Superman? Plenty. But who knew back in 1978, that SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, directed by Richard ‘LETHAL WEAPON’ Donner, would end up being so unassailable in its craftsmanship and imagination? Thirty-five years on, and it is looking to be the unbeatable definitive version. The shadow is long. How do you top the likes of Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman and Terence Stamp? These are legends. Here Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon and Laurence Fishburne add their vast skills and gravitas, but they are hamstrung from competing by a pedestrian script. Christopher Nolan may have contributed story elements, but his fingerprints are not on this. [To read more, click here.]
Now, cards on the table, I do love a strikingly made noisy blockbuster (e.g. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS or THE AVENGERS or INDEPENDENCE DAY). However, pleasure is not derived from the nonsensical kind (TRANSFORMERS or BATTLESHIP or IRON MAN 3). How many attempts have there now been, on both the small and silver screens, at interpreting Superman? Plenty. But who knew back in 1978, that SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, directed by Richard ‘LETHAL WEAPON’ Donner, would end up being so unassailable in its craftsmanship and imagination? Thirty-five years on, and it is looking to be the unbeatable definitive version. The shadow is long. How do you top the likes of Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman and Terence Stamp? These are legends. Here Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon and Laurence Fishburne add their vast skills and gravitas, but they are hamstrung from competing by a pedestrian script. Christopher Nolan may have contributed story elements, but his fingerprints are not on this. [To read more, click here.]
THE LONE RANGER
“I want to show you something. From the time of Alexander the Great, no man could travel faster than the horse that carried him. Not anymore. Imagine: Time and space, under the mastery of man, power that makes emperors and kings look like fools. Whoever controls this, controls the future,” Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson)
San Francisco, 1933. The camera pulls back to reveal a vista of the partially completed Golden Gate Bridge. The lens roves, coming to a fairground. A young boy dressed as a cowboy enters an exhibit of selected depictions of national history, before arresting his gaze on what looks to be a statue of an old man, a Native American. It of course moves, revealing an aged Tonto (Johnny Depp), who proceeds to recount a certain seminal moment of his life… This framing device is repeatedly returned to, providing context, and a literal get-out-of-jail device to paper over plot leaps. At first, such a mechanic feels to be an unnecessary crutch THE LONE RANGER does not need. However, if one takes a step back, it adds a melancholic nostalgia to a tale set in the last arguable age of wonder and naivety. [To read more, click here.]
San Francisco, 1933. The camera pulls back to reveal a vista of the partially completed Golden Gate Bridge. The lens roves, coming to a fairground. A young boy dressed as a cowboy enters an exhibit of selected depictions of national history, before arresting his gaze on what looks to be a statue of an old man, a Native American. It of course moves, revealing an aged Tonto (Johnny Depp), who proceeds to recount a certain seminal moment of his life… This framing device is repeatedly returned to, providing context, and a literal get-out-of-jail device to paper over plot leaps. At first, such a mechanic feels to be an unnecessary crutch THE LONE RANGER does not need. However, if one takes a step back, it adds a melancholic nostalgia to a tale set in the last arguable age of wonder and naivety. [To read more, click here.]
PLANES
If you ask me, more racers should want to be crop dusters,” Chug
Dear oh dear. PLANES maybe from the “world of CARS”, but those two Pixar films, the weakest in their strikingly good canon, are masterpieces compared this. It doesn’t take long at all for a flatulence joke to appear, and the tone is set for a pedestrian cartoon aimed at the very youngest. Dusty is a crop duster who dreams of entering the “Wings Around the Globe” rally. [To read more, click here.]
Dear oh dear. PLANES maybe from the “world of CARS”, but those two Pixar films, the weakest in their strikingly good canon, are masterpieces compared this. It doesn’t take long at all for a flatulence joke to appear, and the tone is set for a pedestrian cartoon aimed at the very youngest. Dusty is a crop duster who dreams of entering the “Wings Around the Globe” rally. [To read more, click here.]
ONLY GOD FORGIVES
“I don’t understand you, and I never will,” Crystal
Ryan Gosling fights god. You haven’t misread. A wrathful god in human form. There’s also karaoke. Maladjusted romance. Thai boxing. Revenge and counter vengeance. Sin and redemption. Nicolas Winding Refn, director of the now beloved DRIVE, has re-teamed with its star, minimalizing dialogue and characterisation further, and upping the eye candy. The set décor is as ornate, if not more so, than this year’s THE GREAT GATSBY. The neon soaked streets of night-time Bangkok rival the glorious 1980s milieu of Ridley Scott’s Tokyo depicted in BLACK RAIN. [To read more, click here.]
Ryan Gosling fights god. You haven’t misread. A wrathful god in human form. There’s also karaoke. Maladjusted romance. Thai boxing. Revenge and counter vengeance. Sin and redemption. Nicolas Winding Refn, director of the now beloved DRIVE, has re-teamed with its star, minimalizing dialogue and characterisation further, and upping the eye candy. The set décor is as ornate, if not more so, than this year’s THE GREAT GATSBY. The neon soaked streets of night-time Bangkok rival the glorious 1980s milieu of Ridley Scott’s Tokyo depicted in BLACK RAIN. [To read more, click here.]
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