On Second Thought | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” and Superman as an Inspiration…

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League last week, it seemed like a good opportunity to dig into the movie’s portrayal of Superman.

Snyder’s portrayal of Superman has always been controversial among more hardcore fans of the character, particularly in Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. There are those who claim that Snyder misunderstands the Man of Steel, and that his films fail to grasp the most compelling aspect of his character. Instead, Zack Snyder’s Justice League offers a fascinating and rounded view of the superhero, one not defined by nostalgia for past iterations – but instead by hope for the generations inspired by him.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: aquaman, Cyborg, flash, hope, immigrant, justice league, nostalgia, potential, superman, the flash, the future, zack snyder, zack snyder's justice league | 4 Comments »

New Escapist Column! On “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” as a Superheroic Reconstruction….

Posted on March 20, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, it seemed like a good time to talk about the film.

In particular, it’s interesting to look at Zack Snyder’s three films as a set, and to chart the journey through deconstruction from Man of Steel through Batman v. Superman and into the final reconstruction. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is essentially a reconstruction of these iconic characters and a celebration of the potential of these comic book characters.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: deconstruction, escapist magazine, justice league, man of steel, reconstruction, the escapist, zack snyder | 1 Comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Horror of Joss Whedon’s “Justice League”…

Posted on March 18, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League this week, it seemed like an appropriate opportunity to take a look at the original theatrical cut of Justice League, which remains one of the worst blockbusters of the past decade.

What makes the theatrical cut of Justice League such an insidious film isn’t just what it is, although it is terrible on its own terms. It’s what the film represents. It’s a very conscious and very deliberate erasure of a distinct vision of an expensive creative project, in the hope of serving reheated nostalgic leftovers that fans might gorge themselves upon. It’s pure, empty, vacuous content – a pale imitation of what other companies do better, without a single unique perspective of its own.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: art, batman, Comics, Content, continuity, directors, joss whedon, justice league, media, superman, the flash, the snyder cut, zack snyder, zack snyder's justice league | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the “Superman II” as the Rosetta Stone of Zack Snyder’s DCEU…

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League this week, it seemed like an appropriate opportunity to take a look at the strange and enduring influence of Superman II on the DCEU, from Man of Steel forward.

Superman II is one of the cornerstones of the superhero genre. It was the first big superhero blockbuster sequel, setting the stage for the franchises that would follow. It was the first depiction of the urban devastation that has become a fixture of the modern superhero spectacle. However, what makes movies like Man of Steel and Zack Snyder’s Justice League so interesting is the extent to which they interrogate and explore the fantasy presented in Superman II.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 9/11, dceu, deconstruction, devastation, exploration, general zod, justice league, man of steel, richard donner, superheroes, superman, superman 2, superman ii, superman returns, violence, zack snyder, zack snyder's justice league | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the “Avatar” as a PG-13 “Aliens”…

Posted on March 14, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist this evening. With the re-release of Avatar in China this weekend, it seemed like an opportunity to take a look at Jameson Cameron’s blockbuster.

Avatar is often discussed in terms of its relationship to nineties films like Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas and even Fern Gully. However, Avatar is also notable in its similarities to James Cameron’s first proper blockbuster. Avatar often feels like a reworking of Aliens, albeit one aimed at a much broader audience. This is interesting, positioning Avatar as part of a wave of similarly four-quadrant-pleasing reboots and remakes of classic R-rated eighties properties.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: aliens, avatar, blockbuster, China, james cameron, memory | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Raya and the Last Dragon” and the New Cinema of Reconciliation…

Posted on March 13, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Given the release of Raya and the Last Dragon last week, it seemed like an appropriate time to discuss an interesting and emerging trend, what I call “the New Cinema of Reconciliation.”

The past five years have been extremely turbulent and difficult for the United States and the wider world, and so there is an understandable yearning for a return to normality, a palpable desire to believe that things could go back to normal and that the damage down to the social fabric could be repaired. This is a major recurring motif in films aimed at younger audiences, from Trolls World Tour through to Wonder Woman 1984. However, Raya and the Last Dragon illustrates how complicated this can be.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: america, biden, raya and the last dragon, reconciliation, trolls world tour, trump, United States, wonder woman 1984 | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On “Mad Max: Fury Road” and the Arbitrary Lines Between High and Low Culture…

Posted on March 9, 2021 by Darren

So, as I have mentioned before, I am launching a new video series as a companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch with the Monday article, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel the following week. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film channel – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This week, with the renewed and ongoing debate between “high” and “low” culture, between “art” and “content”, it seemed like a good time to take a look at one of the more fascinating films to straddle that line. Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth entry in a long-running franchise, a film essentially built around a long car chase and explosions. However it’s also as pure a piece of cinema that has ever been made. It demonstrates the fungibility of those perceived boundaries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akUoIzuxXyI

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: art, charleze theron, culture, george miller, high art, in the frame, low culture, mad max, mad max: fury road, martin scorsese, tom hardy | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Fifth Anniversary of “10 Cloverfield Lane”…

Posted on March 8, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Because it’s the fifth anniversary of 10 Cloverfield Lane, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the paranoid and claustrophobic thriller. In particular, 10 Cloverfield Lane arrived on the cusp of a wave of similar movies about characters trapped and suffocated in claustrophobic horror: films as diverse as Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room and even Todd Haynes’ Carol.

Looking at these wave of films in hindsight, they suggest something simmering beneath the surface of American consciousness, a nightmare about characters who find themselves in hostile and oppressive environments and forced to survive as best they can. 10 Cloverfield Lane was perhaps the culmination of this cinematic trend, and galvanises many of those themes into a potent allegory for abuse and survival, ending with the revelation that not all of this monstrosity is trapped behind locked doors.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 10 cloverfield lan, dna tratcheberg, escapist, film, in the frame, Movie, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” and Passing the Torch to the Next Generation…

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Darren

This week, we took a look at the strange wonder that was Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and the fact that it would be impossible to imagine a franchise drawing the shutters down in the same way these days. The Undiscovered Country is not only an explicit rejection of nostalgia, it is also an interrogation of the past, refusing to pull any punches in its look at the original Star Trek. It’s an approach that could never happen today, and popular culture is all the weaker for that.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: in the frame, star trek, star trek vi: the undiscovered country, the escapist, the undiscovered country | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Mad Max: Fury Road”, and the Elastic Boundaries Between “High” and “Low” Culture…

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. There’s been a lot of debate recently about the boundaries between “art” and “content”, which can frequently sound like a debate about “high” and “low” culture, so I thought it was worth taking a look at how porous those boundaries can be.

On paper, Mad Max: Fury Road should be a standard franchise film. It’s the fourth film in the Mad Max franchise, serving as a vague sequel or even reboot to one of Australia’s most successful movie franchises. It cost a lot of money. It features a lot of special effects. It has very little dialogue. However, in spire of that, it is arguably as pure an expression of cinema as an artform as has every existed, and demonstrates how elastic and how illusory arguments about “high” and “low” culture truly are.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.