You can make a hundred comparisons between Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity and that monumental symbol of the hype machine, The Blair Witch Project.
The similarities are obvious: both are essentially ghost stories, told from faux-documentary video footage. Both have small casts of nobodies, first-time directors, and most critically, both have witnessed huge theatrical success despite [...]
2009 and 2010 will see the release of two films by master visionary directors — Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus by Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam. In a world that’s full to the brim of remakes and reboots, unoriginal thought after unoriginal thought, you’d think we’d be happy [...]
This past week, I revisited the Back to the Future trilogy, directed by Robert Zemeckis. These films essentially laid the groundwork for Michael J. Fox’s career — the man is synonymous with Marty McFly. The movies are a mad dash, guaranteed to raise your stress level and blood pressure no matter how many times you [...]
What is it about the Coppola family that makes the substance of Francis Ford Coppola’s films so often driven by what happens behind a family’s closed doors?
It’s never exactly a positive situation, either: his Godfather trilogy is about the implosion of a family, the fall of a son and an effort to sustain a lineage. [...]
One week ago, news broke regarding the next entry in Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo franchise.
Rambo V: The Savage Hunt will divert the franchise into science fiction territory akin to Predator.
The official plot synopsis according to Aint it Cool News was loud and clear:
A beast is loose somewhere north of the Arctic Circle…And the raging creature is [...]
Basterds on the other hand — it’s a film about wounded people, angry people, lashing out at each other with all of their talents, as diverse as they may be. For Hugo, this equates to a bloodbath. Shoshanna is fire and smoke and theatrics. For Col. HansLanda, words are enough to pierce to the bone, and he knows it.
Our hero Wikus is another fool endlessly tortured by greedy commerce as Ellen Ripley is. In these science fiction stories, human beings cease to be that and are tools, methods to weaponry, and lives are decided by suits.
Even without the visual cue, the tale of Tom Hansen and Summer Finn’s romantic rollercoaster ride would evoke memories in the educated filmgoer of The Graduate.
(In this weekly column, I’ll take two films, one old and one new, and compare them in terms of theme and substance, hopefully in some interesting ways. I’ll be trying not to spoil too much of these films, but in order to dissect them properly I’ll have to venture into spoiler territory a little.)
(Minor Spoiler [...]
Inglourious Basterds — Through the Lens of Literature
Note: The following essay, which is obviously being published months after the release of Inglourious Basterds, was written for a literary criticism class that explores theory behind literary criticism and focuses on analyzing textual works from a variety of perspectives. This assignment involved using these tools of literature to explore a work outside of the [...]