And so, after a gap of over 13 years, James Cameron returns us to Pandora with an introduction that posits the most dangerous thing about that locale is that you may come to love her too much. Cameron is quite obviously smitten with his mythical planet whose inhabitants, the 8-foot-tall Na’avi, are more in tune… Read More »
REMINISCENCE
There is a persistent torpor to REMINISCENCE, a film that tries to be many things and fails for the most part. Rife with visuals that evoke a disquieting dreamlike state, the story, an ersatz neo-noir set mostly between sunset and sunrise, drones along with the cinematic equivalent of a mosquito’s interminable buzz on a humid… Read More »
DR. SLEEP
Click here for the flashback interview with Ewan McGregor for SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN. DR. SLEEP, the sequel to THE SHINING, faced several issues in being brought to the screen, and has done so with a neat aplomb. The original film veered wildly from its source material as Stanley Kubrick adapted it to fit… Read More »
FAST AND FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS AND SHAW
HOBBS AND SHAW is, occasionally, as clever as it thinks it is. Fueled by that cocksure attitude, a healthy dose of ironic self-awareness, and the undeniable star power of its three eye-candy leads, this spin-off from the Fast and Furious franchise is a pleasant enough diversion. The plot is strictly a perfunctory exercise involving a… Read More »
A THOUSAND WORDS
There is something almost poignant in the way Eddie Murphy so palpably desires to make a meaningful film about enlightenment. The almost comes from the difference between that aspiration and the painfully ill-conceived follow-through in A THOUSAND WORD. This is not Murphy’s first attempt to explore the spiritual side of the human experience. There was… Read More »
SUNSHINE
With SUNSHINE, Danny Boyle once again switches film genres with a masterly touch. Having explored gritty realism with TRAINSPOTTING, social satire with SHALLOW GRAVE, whimsical fantasy with MILLIONS, and apocalyptic horror with 28 DAYS LATER, he has moved on to science fiction, albeit science fiction that also functions as a white-knuckle thriller. For all the… Read More »
10,000 B.C.
10,000 B.C. is a suitably old-fashioned action story, which is emminently suitable to the sort of old-fashioned fantasy/adventure tale it tells, one that is set in the remote past, when Stonehenge was more or less new, and before even the pyramids were built. Depending upon, of course, which version of the past to which you… Read More »