X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
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X-Men: Apocalypse is a disappointment by relying on cultural tropes instead of its stellar cast
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Music Box: Sia's "This Is Acting" (2016)
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Sia's latest album tackles the things our culture forces us to struggle with
Read MoreCaptain America: Civil War (2016)
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Captain America: Civil War is another entertaining Marvel movie that reinforces the studio's movie-making and universe-building qualities its competitors can only dream of.
Read MoreComics Are for Everyone: Civil War #1-7 (2006)
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The original Civil War comic is undeniably intriguing but also flawed in its execution.
Read MoreJohn Carter (2012)
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(spoilers!)
John Carter is a decent, messy movie that throws too many things at the audience while offering too few really appealing aspects to make it worthwhile. It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be but it certainly wasn’t really anything special either. The effects move from interesting to obvious, the acting is okay at best as no one really stands out, the plot is convoluted and the movie’s mood also alternates between pathos, comedy, action brawl and sci-fi standard. It is amazing yet again how a movie can be made for hundreds of millions of dollars, developed over decades and still leave such a little mark, not only in film history (besides being seen as a disastrous flop), but also for the audience. I can hardly imagine remembering much of this movie in a year or two.
Read MoreHere's My Future (4)
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In Here’s My Future I’m talking about my transfer from a traditional school after seven years to an integrated, more alternative school and all the changes that this change brings for my profession.
A student recently told me something that I found astounding, not because it was a revolutionary insight, but because a 7th grader expressed it, showing an emotional depth and openness that most adults couldn’t even imagine having. We talked about some exercise and then he said: “I’ve always thought if you’re bad at something, you’ll always be bad at it. But now I see that you can actually get better! You don’t have to stay bad.” Having a kid realize that change, especially personal change, is possible, is more gratifying than you can imagine. This is still representative for my experiences at this school.
Read MoreFuture Template: Snowpiercer (2013)
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In Future Template I want to look at stories that depict our future and analyze the pattern that most of them follow and what this tells us about our culture.
(spoilers ahead)
Snowpiercer is a fascinating and breathtaking science-fiction movie that has an intriguing premise which is explored to the fullest. The movie works so well because you feel how the filmmakers really dig into their idea, which makes the movie very rewarding since you never know what to expect next. From the outside it looks like some B-movie but the production values are excellent as the cinematography and the visual effects really work well. The acting is great, too, all the way through. Chris Evans might be at his best here, Tilda Swinton is just amazing, Ah-sung Ko is really good too and besides all the other great people here, Ed Harris and Alison Pill have short but very striking moments too. This is a fun, clever and exciting movie.
Read MoreThe Daniel Quinn Files: Ishmael (6)
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We are still rushing down the cliff on our improvised plane contraption, so let’s get to business right away. Remember, we have stopped at the point of trying to figure out which laws everyone but our culture follows that tells us how to live and which we have been breaking for 10,000 years, taking the whole planet down with us. Let’s find out more.
Read MoreBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
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(spoilers!)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has an appropriately silly title for a movie that is so bad, it could easily work as an unintentional comedy or a drinking game or a thesis on how not to make a comic book movie. It is that bad, one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a cinema in a long time. Granted, I expected not to like it but had to see it anyway, mainly because its predecessor Man of Steel was one of the kickstarters for this blog. I’m not sure BvS:DoJ can solicit as deep an analysis as Man of Steel did, but there is plenty to discuss anyway. But let me stress one more time: this movie is really, really bad, worse than Man of Steel, incompetently bad and a really bad sign for DC’s attempt at creating a movie universe. And I say that as a confessing comic book and superhero fan. This movie is stupid, incoherent, annoying, laughable and boring. I’ll keep my bets on Civil War and X-Men: Apocalypse even more than before.
Read MoreYou Belong on the Radio - UK Music Charts (2)
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I haven’t discussed new music since November and I’ve only looked at the British music charts once, all the way back in August 2014, so it’s time to do both again as these songs seem ripe to be analyzed. Let’s listen to some fresh tunes then, shall we?
Read MoreBehind These Castle Walls, Part IV: Dumbo (1941)
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We're still in the 40s with our Disney movies and now we get to the famous elephant who is known for the slur everyone else uses for him. That is a good indication for the weirdness of this movie. It is a movie I had seen before. For its short runtime, it is not very entertaining and feels stretched anyway. It also does not have the same artistic skills the previous movies have shown.
Read MoreComics Are for Everyone: Less Capitalism, More Telepathy Please
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Recently, I dived back into reading comics (thereby neglecting my movie watching) and my collection of comic examples has become crazy huge, so today I’ll celebrate my 300th blog post (seriously, 300! 280,000 words! But who’s counting?) with an extra-long comic edition. And if you think “I can skip this one, I don’t care about comics”, please give it try anyway, maybe you’ll see that it doesn’t always have to be about superheroes.
Read MoreSpotlight (2015)
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(minor spoilers)
Spotlight is not your typical Best Picture Oscar-winner because it is not flashy or fancy, neither in its filmmaking nor its acting, but it is a really good and important movie. The performances are all great, nuanced and authentic with not one overpowering the others but simply being believable. Tom McCarthy is a director who doesn’t get enough credit for his style. There are scenes where the camera and the editing do very subtle things that are incredibly effective. The movie certainly takes its time but is never boring for a second because every scene has a purpose and adds to the overall picture and message. Some people call it “boring” or “old-fashioned”, which is not true in either case. It is a compelling piece of cinema that does exactly what it needs to do. I highly recommend it.
Read MoreTrailing Tropes: When Angela Bassett Cries
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I’ve been wanting to write about trailers a while now, but when I was sitting in the cinema recently, it again occurred to me how strongly trailers rely on certain tropes. It doesn’t mean that the movies they are advertising do things wrong because a trailer is never really as representative as we are supposed to believe. But what fascinates me is how trailers use certain images to promote their movies, how the reduction to a couple of images leads to images that have clear connotations audiences should respond to. I don’t know if this will become a recurring feature, but for now, let’s take a look at some trailers and the tropes they market besides their actual product.
Read MoreEx Machina (2015)
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(spoilers)
Ex Machina fulfills the expectations I had after reading and hearing so much about it in the last couple of months. It continues Alex Garland’s streak of writing thought-provoking stories that challenge common perceptions we have about ourselves and our society. The movie uses amazing performances (Isaac, Vikander and Gleeson are all excellent), impressive visual effects and its gorgeous locations to generate a very effective movie that is intriguing from beginning to end. Just when you think it becomes too conventional it takes an extra turn at the end to become even more than we thought. It might not be an absolutely amazing movie (it’s not Looper), but it nevertheless is very good.
Read MoreHere's My Future (3)
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In Here’s My Future I’m talking about my transfer from a traditional school after seven years to an integrated, more alternative school and all the changes that this change brings for my profession.
I’m sitting at my new school now, at my desk, in my room. It’s the end of my third week and I feel both exhilarated and exhausted. It has been quite a ride, so much has happened, I’ve learned and saw a lot and even if I sometimes feel frustrated, my overall feelings definitely lean more to the positive side. Here’s why.
Read MoreIt Follows (2014)
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(spoilers)
It Follows is an incredibly unique horror movie that almost never does what you expect it to do and constantly challenges and surprises you. It is slow but scary, beautifully filmed and plays with genre conventions while still following the traditions of classic horror movies. That it accomplishes both is impressive all by itself. It is simply amazing to me that this small movie manages to get everything right, astounding cinematography (almost every shot could be framed, not unlike the amazing work of Gregory Crewdson), a fitting score, great performances and a compelling story that is just ambiguous enough to neither be frustrating nor too expository. I also love the unspecified setting, its mix of futuristic and 80s-nostalgia tones. It is a horror masterpiece for which you have to be ready because it’s dreamlike atmosphere is not for everyone. But it’s really, really good. It’s one of those debut movies where you feel every second that someone put all their efforts and passion into making exactly the movie they wanted to make, which turns out to be a great movie.
Read MoreThe Daniel Quinn Files: Ishmael (5)
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Last time, we arrived at the end of the myth we tell ourselves about the origin of mankind. That we are working through a constantly progressing development which makes us better and better until humans, the top of the species, will be able to control everything. But Ishmael promised to tell a different story, a story about knowledge of having a way to live which we deny even exists. I’m not sure how much of a “secret” this is anymore, but I still like that part because it goes beyond what we think is there, uncovering what is right in front of our eyes.
Read MoreBehind These Castle Walls, Part III: Fantasia (1940)
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It’s been clearly too long since the last installment and I blame today’s movie for it. Fantasia is a difficult movie to approach because it has no larger story and is also not as well known today as all the other movies. Yet again, it is clearly a technological achievement with astonishing visuals and an unusual concept for its time, mixing animation, classical music and live action footage for what must have been really confusing to audiences in 1940. I had never seen it before but only the Fantasia 2000 sequel. I thought about talking about the original version that includes the racist scenes that have been removed since 1960 and while this is interesting, I decided not to because a) this problem is obvious and has been dealt with by Disney (with only a 20 year-delay) and b) I’m doing this to discuss the effects these movies still have today, so I might as well go with the current version. There are still enough issues to look at in this one and I can’t wait to move on to get to the next ones (of which there are still officially 53 left).
Read MoreDo You Want to Dress Up As a Unisex Snowman?
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It’s that time of the year again. That time where many people can’t wait to dress up and have fun, while others (including myself) want to escape and hide for a weekend until it’s all over. I wrote about it last year and not much has changed from that article. But this year it is harder for me to escape the claws of Fasching.
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