John Carter (2012)

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John Carter (2012)

(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.

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Here's My Future (4)

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Here's My Future (4)

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.

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Future Template: Snowpiercer (2013)

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Future Template: Snowpiercer (2013)

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.

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The Daniel Quinn Files: Ishmael (6)

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The Daniel Quinn Files: Ishmael (6)

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.

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

(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.

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You Belong on the Radio - UK Music Charts (2)

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You Belong on the Radio - UK Music Charts (2)

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?

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Behind These Castle Walls, Part IV: Dumbo (1941)

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Behind These Castle Walls, Part IV: Dumbo (1941)

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.

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Comics Are for Everyone: Less Capitalism, More Telepathy Please

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Comics Are for Everyone: Less Capitalism, More Telepathy Please

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.

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