Categories
Revision Candidate Legacy Podcast Rating Review

Brick (2006)

Brick is one of my favorite movies I’ve seen in months.

Categories
Revision Candidate Legacy Podcast Rating Review

The Rock-afire Explosion (2008)

I rewatched this documentary prior to my tour at the Creative Engineering factory that built the Rock-afire / Chuck-E-Cheese animatronics.

Categories
Legacy Podcast Rating Capsule

Summertime (1955)

The screenplay is unfortunately quite a bit prosaic. None of the characterization is strong enough for us to really buy into the romance or Hepburn’s self-discovery.

But the footage of Venice in over-saturated Technicolor? Holy moley. I fell in love with the city all over again. Lean captures it with an intoxicating, almost delirious, beauty. *nostalgic sigh*

Categories
Podcast Rating Legacy Capsule

Boogie Nights (1997)

Perhaps a bit too generous towards its characters and indulgent in its runtime, but goddamn what a movie. The acting, the extended flowing shots, the use of sound (firecrackers!), the sprawling ensemble… this is cinema at its most robust and vibrant, and I’m here for it.

Categories
Legacy Podcast Rating

The Care Bears Movie (1985)

“There’s something so crass about a movie constructed entirely around selling toys”

Categories
Legacy Podcast Rating

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009)

From the podcast recording: “I wanted to be fond of it, because there are lots of things on the surface level I want to root for, and maybe kind of like, but none of it actually pulls through. “

Categories
Legacy Podcast Rating Capsule

The Elephant Man (1980)

Still a biopic with too many biopic-y moments. But it’s David Lynch so there’s plenty of weirdness, dual-sided themes, and moral grayness. (Though it is the most conventional Lynch I’ve seen.) Looks amazing, sounds brilliant (Lynch was the sound engineer, too!).

The makeup/prosthesis is masterpiece-level, and John Hurt is phenomenal underneath it, too. Observing a person gradually emerge from something that looks so viscerally grotesque is the film’s greatest strength.

Categories
Legacy Podcast Rating Capsule

The Circus (1928)

What a delight. Chaplin in fine form, with one sketch after another that plays to the setting well. (A high-wire monkey attack is, in particular, chaotic perfection.) There’s also a strong undercurrent of reflection on the life of performer and authenticity in entertainment, and an ending unusually bittersweet for early/mid-Chaplin.

Categories
Podcast Rating Capsule

The Greatest Showman (2017)

“It’s fire, it’s freedom, it’s flooding open”

There should be more big budget original non-animated musicals

Reviewed on The Goods: A Film Podcast during Circus Month

Categories
Podcast Rating Legacy

Paper Towns (2015)