Although the director of (500) Days of Summer had a lot of success with this film, his two Spider-man movies starring Andy Garfield weren’t what a lot of people were expecting. Webb returned to his roots with this smaller film, Gifted starring Chris Evans. Continue reading
If history has taught us something, it probably is that humanity has hardly learned anything from it. One way or another we all like to think that we are different compared to the people who lived fifty or two hundred years ago. Of course we are partly different, but the basics, the emotions and needs have not changed. You still see that some people who are in a position of power abuse it and sometimes can get away with it as well. Detroit shows events which you can imagine having happened just a week ago. Continue reading
In general, romantic comedies have a huge issue. They are very predictable and often too “sugary”. That is also the main reason that they often don’t appeal to me. Nevertheless, The Big Sick got a lot of positive reactions last year and the title also appeared on many top 10 lists. If that happens, that is enough reason to give a film a chance. And it delivered an entertaining and surprising two hours. Continue reading
Xenomorphs have been scaring us shirtless since the late 1970s, becoming one of the most iconic franchises – and an inspiration for countless science fiction/horror crossovers – in the 1980s and the 1990s. Ridley Scott tried his hand in big-screen horror for the first time with Alien after winning over the hearts of the Cannes jury with his big screen debut “Duellists” in 1977. And he created something of lasting value, a franchise that would’ve been a waste not to continue – even if the later iterations of the story were far behind what the fans would’ve expected from it (Alien3 was considered a failure by many while Alien Resurrection was called outright “bad” by an equally large group of people). When Scott took back the reins for the Alien series, people expected it to be reborn, to scare us shirtless once again. Instead, it has taken a different path: first, it explored our origins and next, it explored the Xenomorphs’ origins on the screen. And, since people expected far more blood, gore, dismemberment and screams, the films mostly failed to win over their hearts. Continue reading
If you go by the title, you might wonder why you should watch a movie that is about three billboards in a place you have never heard of. If you look a bit further and see that Martin McDonagh is the writer and director, it becomes more interesting. He made the highly valued In Bruges in the past and was also responsible for Seven Psychopaths. And with a star cast including Francis McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell and four Golden Globes (for best actress in a drama, best film (drama), best male supporting role in film and best script) is this one of the first must-sees of the year. Continue reading
At the start of this documentary an Italian restaurant waitress shows the viewer the many pictures plastering the walls. She explains which celebrities are shown, who have all visited the place in the past. During that moment you realise that that knowledge about those people in the pictures, once she is gone, will be lost forever. The people on the pictures were famous during the height of their careers, but they also, unless they played a very important role in history, will be forgotten within decades. And with that the pictures lose their meaning as well.
Director Denise Janzée tries to do the reverse here, based on a picture. It is a world famous photo of a class showing two little boys, who will later turn out to be icons of Italian cinema: Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in America) and composer Ennio Morricone, who wrote a lot of iconic movie scores. Between the two little boys there is a third. There is a name written on the picture in pen, but besides that nothing is known about him. Is it possible to find out more about his life based on that name and the picture? Continue reading
When you’ve been writing about movies as long as I have, you at times start looking for something different. Something a little more fun. One of the things I used to love on the now defunct The Focused Filmographer were the Cinematicaptions articles. I want to bring that back to life as Creative Subtitles, which is all about fun! So what’s the idea?
You’ve probably watched TV with the sound off and made up yourself what the characters were saying. This is the same, but then using promotional shots from a couple of movies. It’s up to you to write down what they are talking about. The crazier, the better! Continue reading
By creating the world of Black Mirror, writer Charlie Brooker shows in each episode how technology can influence our lives. It shows how it can solve problems, but at the same time also how it can make people suffer by it, even if this wasn’t the purpose of that technology. That’s also the case with the final episode of season 4, which just like the episode White Christmas, consists of short stories set against a bigger backdrop. Continue reading
If you keep up with the technology news, you’ve probably heard of Boston Dynamics and their robot creations. It started with Big Dog that has been developed into Spot and the Spot Mini . But also creations like Handle , Atlas to the almost frightening Wildcat. Where these developments will possibly end is the subject of this episode of Black Mirror. Continue reading
I have to admit that I actually do not watch too many films that were not made in America. The main reason is perhaps that I usually have the urge to see the latest (big) releases, precisely because those are most talked about. As a result, it is often you only find out about great films made in the rest of the world if they have an Oscar nomination or receive attention because of a very specific reason. Nevertheless, I sometimes try to watch movies that I haven’t heard about and that was the case at The Nile Hilton Incident. Continue reading