Dir. Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Jenny Slate Zootopia is built on sight gags, one of those rare gifts to animated film that just work better there than in real life. Judy Hopps (Goodwin), who is incredibly small compared to the other animals in Zootopia, chases a thief into a… Read More Zootopia (2016)
Dir. Steve McQueen. Starring Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Brian Milligan After the debut of 12 Years a Slave, the charges that McQueen’s direction – his long takes, his still camera, his artful establishing shots – was “gimmicky” or, more inscrutably, “distracted from the film” began to proliferate. I’ve always thought that was primarily a response to… Read More Hunger (2008)
Before the Internet, it was very clear to me that Luke Skywalker was the hero of the Star Wars films. He was the one imbued with special powers, the only good guy with a lightsaber, the one who blew up the first Death Star and who, in a sort of oblique way, was responsible for… Read More Star Wars I-VI Project: Episodes V-VI
Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Starring Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara Valentin “You know Hitler?” “Hitler, yes.” Emmi (Mira) asks Ali (ben Salem) that question twice in this film. The first time, it’s the same night she’s met Ali. They’re sitting at her dinette maybe a couple of hours after they met for the… Read More Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Dir. Charles Sturridge. Starring Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, Claire Bloom (My thoughts on the preceding episode are here.) No new characters of any importance, no new threads to manage, no real change since last we met with our Brideshead friends. “Sebastian Against the World” is an episode built to bring serious issues to a head,… Read More Brideshead Revisited S1E4, “Sebastian Against the World”
Dir. Charles Sturridge. Starring Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, Charles Keating (My thoughts on the preceding episode are here.) I saw him already as being threatened, though I did not know how black was the threat. His constant despairing prayer was to be left alone, and since he counted among the intruders his own conscience, of… Read More Brideshead Revisited S1E3, “The Bleak Light of Day”
Dir. Charles Sturridge. Starring Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, Laurence Olivier (My thoughts on the preceding episode are here.) There’s no doubt that of the eleven Brideshead episodes, this is the worst one with a bullet, and yet without it the first half of the miniseries would collapse. Over the course of this episode, Sebastian’s family and their… Read More Brideshead Revisited S1E2, “Home and Abroad”
Dir. Charles Sturridge. Starring Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, John Gielgud Brideshead Revisited meanders a little while before getting started. Its first episode is an hour and forty minute jaunt which begins with Charles Ryder (Irons), officer in the British Army, alone and pensive. I’ve always felt loneliest when people have to tell me that I am, in… Read More Brideshead Revisited S1E1, “Et in Arcadia Ego”
Dir. Patrick Garland. Starring Claire Bloom, Anthony Hopkins, Anna Massey For all of the hype about the end of A Doll’s House (which I rather prefer translated as “A Doll House” but which is not terribly important to what I’m saying here), one forgets that it reads rather like the second draft of a dramatic encounter on The… Read More A Doll’s House (1973)
Dir. Peter Jackson. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen. The Fellowship of the Ring – Plot As long as narrative fiction remains, there will always be a need for strong plots. John Gardner has been paraphrased as saying that there are only two plots in literature: “someone goes on a journey” or “a stranger… Read More Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
Seeing Things Secondhand 