What a strange mess this film is. It really has no idea what it wants to be, and should be a film studies lesson in knowing what you want from your outcome. I can’t be bothered to detail the fractured plot, but it has multiple threads which seemingly are unaware… Continue reading
I’m pretty sure that future historians will trace the fall of modern civilisation to the moment when people began to speak reverentially of “the Marvel universe” or “the DC universe”, as if it was the Manhattan project of literature. I mean we don’t talk in sonorous tones of “the Eastenders… Continue reading
I am old enough to remember going to the cinema to see the first Star Trek film in 1980. And that in itself was a reboot of the TV series which was nearly always on rotation on TV. I bumped into some mates from school at that screening and the… Continue reading
I think I’ve established my disdain for comic book movies on here. My charge book is: fans take them too seriously; as soon as you take them seriously then you have to take them seriously – and then it’s silly men dressing up in outfits being white vigilantes; they represent… Continue reading
There is an odd surface quality to Ron Howard’s recounting of the tale of the whaleship Essex, which famously inspired Moby Dick. It is a fantastical tale in itself, but Howard directly adds in the Moby Dick literary weight in the mix, by having the tale retold to Melville. Moby… Continue reading
In Germany there is a black and white 1963 British film called Dinner for One, which is shown across most of the major TV stations, every New Year’s Eve. Up to half the German population watch it, every year. It is quite pointless to review Dinner for One in isolation, as… Continue reading
