January 2009
8 posts
“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” (Acts 1-3) feels like (and could be) a campy off-Broadway musical, or a 43 minute pilot for something more.
December 2008
29 posts
thought we’d get a little more work done while watching “Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures”; should have known better.
“FlCl” is technically innovative adolescent anime with no real vision or direction.
is “The Dark Knight” — well crafted and cast 2D entertainment — the Batman movie most faithful to the Frank Miller comic oeuvre?
“I was expecting someone fatter and fortier.” - Johnny Dollar (episode 1)
been wondering when someone would attempt microblog fiction with multiple characters. will read @AChristmasCarol with interest.
created @AChristmasCast to list all the cast of @AChristmasCarol (http://TwitteringDickens.com), for convenient following.
looking at the animation techniques of Jeff Scher. http://delicious.com/FeralFilmLLC/JeffScher
liking how “Firefly” paces itself with the occasional flat out comic episode (e.g. “Our Mrs. Reynolds”).
suspense in “The Safety of Objects” relies too much on withholding from the audience information known to every character in the story.
weary of filmmakers portraying suburbia with perfunctory caricatures. it’s been done to death. get over your suburban roots and move on.
“The Andromeda Strain” (2008) bites off more than the original, like a hungry toddler using exposition to smear science all over his face.
the first episode of “Firefly” does everything a pilot should, telling a good story that introduces characters you start to know a little.
to miscast a central role in your film is to watch your starting quarterback insist on *dribbling* the ball toward you own endzone.
i’m looking at you Daniela Amavia (http://bit.ly/SAYW), out of your depth as Alia Atreides (http://bit.ly/1cv5EU).
good actors (http://bit.ly/Cqwm, http://bit.ly/dGC5) can salvage something from an awful script (http://bit.ly/rW0B by http://bit.ly/mgFc).
instincts suggest the makers of “Children Of Dune” worshipped long at the temple of Star Wars.
cheerleaders should not be cast in the role of mystics. and infantile boys should not direct them.
“The Andromeda Strain” (1971) nudges scifi cinema from it’s shiny antiseptic science-as-savior past toward paranoid congenital entropy.
just when we thought we were safely in the 21st century… Seventies Sci Fi Movie Night returns at Feral Film!
Children Of Dune (2003): a cast of pretty faces who cannot enliven this green-screened sandstorm of expository and melodramatic dialog.
“Quantum of Solace” is so in love with gritty shaky-cam fast cuts, that you have no sense of place, pace or space during action sequences.
old James Bond films were futurist gadget fantasies, now they are 100 minute infomercials for this year’s latest store-bought gadget.
the third season of “The Wire” is the best paced, yet — never rushed, least of all in the season finale — every moment worth waiting for.
watching “The Wire” (season 3, episode 8 of 12) take it’s sweet glorious time developing the story and characters with ever greater depth.
“Ma Vie En Rose” (1997) is a fable about being different, painted in toy store tones over a banalized suburban landscape, with Barbie dust.
“Traffik” (1989) is pregnant with predictable caricatures — written without experience, directed without depth, humourless — stillborn.
raised on a steady diet of American TV and cinema, the BBC’s portrayals of violence and gunplay generally suggest middle school theatrics.
“A Face In the Crowd” (1957) is cheesy, often misogynistic, and seemingly outlines the Republican Party’s eventual formula for taking power.