January 2009
19 posts
New Statesman - The revolution that wasn't: Sam... →
Yates’s writing is so surgically precise in exploring the dynamics of self-delusion that it conceals the way the book stacks the odds against every character. It would take a master to pull off the same trick on screen. And, four pictures into his film career, Mendes is still some distance from masterful. His middlebrow sensibility gravitates toward the book’s blandest ideas -...
“Christopher Nolan showed himself a clever director in Memento and a promising...”
– Observations on film art and FILM ART : Superheroes for sale
Toby Litt on the best of JG Ballard | The Guardian →
When I read JG Ballard, I go into a particular kind of trance. The effect of his books isn’t comparable to those of any other writer. His prose, right from the beginning, has a mesmerising pace, rhythm and decorum all its own. Even more remarkably, Ballard has established his own set of visionary locations. Plenty of other writers now fictionally venture into multistorey carparks, airport...
Mick Lasalle: 'Curious Case of Benjamin Button' →
To call Benjamin a passive protagonist is not enough. He’s all but inert, and the movie defines him almost exclusively in terms of his aging process. He has no ambition, no interests, no position save that of an outsider and no desire except for Daisy. He is an uninteresting person to whom something medically interesting has happened. For the screenwriter, this is the weakest possible...
WatchStar Wars retold by someone who hasn’t seen it - Boing Boing
After Hours :: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies →
“After Hours” approaches the notion of pure filmmaking; it’s a nearly flawless example of — itself. It lacks, as nearly as I can determine, a lesson or message, and is content to show the hero facing a series of interlocking challenges to his safety and sanity. It is “The Perils of Pauline” told boldly and well.
Period of upheaval | courier-journal | The... →
New views challenge the idea that ’50s and early ’60s were about bland conformism. Revolutionary Road, Mad Men and John Cheever.
Variety: Variety reports that the Oscars are considering passing over Brad Pitt's performance in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button for a Best Actor nod, because his acting was enhanced by special effects.
maclaine: Variety reports that the Oscars are considering passing over Colin Farrell's performance In Bruges for a Best Actor nod, because his acting was enhanced by midget sighting.
things magazine: an online journal about objects... →
The Empty Room is a ghostly presence in contemporary culture. For, despite our aspirations to minimalism and reductivism, these are simply not natural states of being. Rooms are rarely empty; the architectural photographer a master of furniture moving in order to simplify the vision. Even abandoned spaces aren’t empty; urban explorers find spaces filled with rubbish and remnants, not...
The Complete Review: Poor Things - Alasdair Gray →
Poor Things is a remarkable piece of work. Presented as the memoir of a Scottish doctor, Archibald McCandless, it describes his life and that of a colleague — the brilliant Godwin Baxter. A not-quite-Dr. Frankenstein, Baxter performs medical marvels. His greatest achievement is the creation of life: he brings to life a dead woman by transplanting the brain of the foetus she is carrying. The...
WatchCharlie Rose - A conversation about the film “Revolutionary Road”
Brideshead Revisited - Bright Young Things in Love... →
…necessarily shorter and less faithful to Waugh’s book [than the mini-series], and also, for what it’s worth, more cinematic. It is also tedious, confused and banal.