So the second time around with The Wrestler, I was struck even more by just how creaky and cliched the script was. But this time I appreciated it more. I didn’t really care that every twist and turn is predictable and shameless. I know it, and Darren Aronofsky and Micky Rourke know it. And this…
moviereview
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
There’s a brilliant 90-minute film here: a Tolstoyesque tale of a group of men searching for the body of a murder victim, shot through with meditations on epistomology and haunting digital-video shots of rural Turkey at night. Unfortunately, that film is packed into a butt-numbing 157 minutes that manages to feel both austere and self-indulgent….
Underwater Nazi Zombie Movie Showdown!
The last few weeks have been a bit eventful, to be sure. Since my return from Australia, I’ve gotten engaged, finished writing and editing my PhD thesis, and started developing iPhone applications. But my real accomplishment is this: I’ve managed to catch up to what are, to my knowledge, the only two Underwater Nazi Zombie…
Animal Kingdom (2010)
I really wanted to like the Aussie crime flick Animal Kingdom, and I almost succeeded. In the end, though, I found the movie more admirable than actually likeable. Centred around a family of bank robbers and sociopaths in a Melbourne suburb, it paints a thoroughly bleak and unromantic picture of the criminal life, full of…
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
I don’t really approve of criticizing movie adaptations for how they failed to live up to one’s personal connection to the source material. Having said that, Scott Pilgrim really failed to live up to my connection to the source material. I love the books, published as a series of six manga-sized graphic novels. The books…