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New Escapist Column! On James Gunn’s Upcoming “The Suicide Squad”…

Posted on August 27, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist earlier in the week. With DC’s Fandome event at the weekend, it seemed like a good time to take a look at one of their upcoming projects: James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.

Gunn didn’t actually premiere too much material from The Suicide Squad, primarily unveiling the cast roster and screening some behind the scenes footage. However, the announcement was interesting, marking a clear delineation from David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. In these brief snippets, Gunn suggests an understanding of what has historically made the Suicide Squad such a compelling concept: its status the island of misfit toys in larger DC continuity.

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

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New Escapist Column! On How “The Dark Knight Rises” Abolished Its Billionaire to Build a Better Batman…

Posted on August 21, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. TENET reviews are dropping in under an hour, and DC Fandome is happening this weekend, so it seemed an appropriate time to take a look back at Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises.

The Dark Knight Rises is a particularly interesting project in the current climate. It’s become common to criticise the idea of Batman as a billionaire who spends his fortune to dress up as a bat instead of actually using it to help the poor and impoverished of Gotham. In that context, The Dark Knight Rises is a work ahead of its time. It’s a story about how Bruce fails Gotham in his role as a billionaire, how maybe Batman shouldn’t be “a man from privilege” and a story in which Bruce donates his family home to the city’s “orphaned and at-risk youth.”

The Dark Knight Rises is the rare superhero story to posit an actual and meaningful ending for its protagonist, and The Dark Knight Rises argues that the only possible happy ending for Batman is for Bruce to lose his fortune and be declared dead, understanding that maybe the mantle of Batman should go to another person who is more keenly aware of what it means to live in Gotham. It’s a very clever and very insightful commentary on the Batman mythos, and one that has aged remarkably well.

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

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New Escapist Column! On Ten Years of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”…

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World turned ten years old this week, so it seemed an appropriate time to look back on the film.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a fascinating study of a particular type of masculinity, and a particular way that young men relate to women. The film begins as an archetypal quest narrative, as the title character works his way through a series of “bosses” in the quest to earn the love of Ramona Flowers. However, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World quickly complicates that narrative, in a way that feels like a prescient commentary on the issues of masculine entitlement. However, it’s not as a simple as a movie ahead of it’s time. It’s a snapshot of a discussion in progress.

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

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New Escapist Column! On “Nightcrawler” as a Metaphorical Vampire Movie…

Posted on August 16, 2020 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier today. Nightcrawler is streaming on Netflix, so it seemed like a nice opportunity to revisit the film.

Nightcrawler is very obviously a loving homage to seventies American cinema, and a commentary on the scrambling at the margins of the post-recession economy. However, writer and director Dan Gilroy frames his story in such a way as to evoke classic vampire movies. At its core, Nightcrawler is the tale of a bloodthirsty parasite prowling the streets of Los Angeles at night, but there’s more to it than that. Nightcrawler is a biting satire and a gritty drama, but it also understands the horror of the situation that it depicts.

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

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New Escapist Column! On “TRON: Legacy” as a Disney Princess Film for Boys…

Posted on August 14, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With news that Disney have commissioned another sequel to TRON, it felt like the right time to take a look back at the last attempt to revive the franchise in TRON: Legacy.

TRON: Legacy is a fascinating film, a product of a strange time at Disney – it was between the purchase of Marvel Entertainment and the release of The Avengers, and before the purchase of LucasFilm. So Disney was trying, with films like John Carter, The Lone Ranger and Tomorrowland to craft live action blockbusters that would appeal to young male audiences. Legacy was the earliest of these examples, perhaps the most successful and the most fascinating: in large part because it tried to translate what Disney did so well in animation into live action.

Legacy is effectively an effort to reimagine the classic animated princess story as a big tentpole blockbuster. It doesn’t entirely work, but the results are fascinating. You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

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New Escapist Column! On How “The Matrix” Reinvented the Hero’s Journey for the 1990s…

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier today. The Matrix sparked some interesting conversation this weekend, with people debating the film as a metaphor for the trans experience.

This exists as part of a larger and more complicated debate around The Matrix, and the ownership of the film in popular imagination. The Matrix means a lot of things to a lot of people, and many of those things are seemingly contradictory. However, The Matrix resonates because it found a way to update the archetypal hero’s journey embodied by Star Wars for the nineties, transposing a lot of the same underlying ideas from one of the most turbulent decades of the twentieth century to one of the most stable. It did this by turning its gaze inward.

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

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New Escapist Column! On How “Captain Marvel” and the Perils of Prioritising Plot Above Character…

Posted on August 9, 2020 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier today. With the news that Nia DaCosta will be directing the sequel to Captain Marvel, it seemed the right time to take a look back at the earlier film.

There is a lot to like about Captain Marvel. It is an extremely charming movie. However, it also suffers from one of the bigger recurring problems of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film is structured around a major plot reveal that lands at pretty much exactly the halfway point. However, this plot reveal is both incredibly obvious and something that prevents the first half of the movie from engaging in any characterisation. Captain Marvel feels like an expression of the recurring sense that Marvel Studios movies are nothing more than plot delivery mechanisms.

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

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New Escapist Column! On Edward Norton, “The Incredible Hulk”, and the Kinds of Movies Marvel Doesn’t Want to Make…

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Prompted by a conversation with a colleague Matthew Razak, I took a look at the troubled second film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredible Hulk.

I have always had something of a soft spot for The Incredible Hulk, in large part because it feels appropriate that a movie about the Green Goliath should find itself caught between extremes. The Incredible Hulk was caught in a conflict between Edward Norton and Marvel Studios. Norton wanted an introspective character-driven superhero film, and Marvel… didn’t. In some ways, The Incredible Hulk offered as clear a roadmap to the future of Marvel Cinematic Universe as Iron Man, if only because it served to illustrate what Marvel didn’t want from their blockbusters.

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

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New Escapist Column! On How “Mulan” is Coming to Disney+, and Studios Are Leaving America Behind…

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier today. With the news that Mulan will be streaming on Disney+ – for a hefty $30 fee – it seemed worth discussing the real story.

A lot of the discussion around Mulan releasing on Disney+ has revolved around the studio’s plan to charge an additional fee, on top of the subscription, for it. This is reasonable. It is a big shift in the American cinematic market. However, it is only part of the story. The video-on-demand release of Mulan will not be enough to turn a significant profit of itself, and it’s clear that the decision to release Mulan at all is rooted in the fact that the international theatrical market is coming back to life. Disney are banking big on Chinese box office.

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

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New Escapist Column! On How Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2010 Predicted Our Post Truth Age…

Posted on August 3, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With both Shutter Island and Inception turning ten years old this year, it seemed like an appropriate opportunity to look back on Leonardo DiCaprio’s interesting double feature from 2010.

There are some interesting parallels between Shutter Island and Inception. Both are stories about men who retreat into fantasy following the death of their wife in order to process their guilt and the sense of responsibility that they have for that death. These are probably DiCaprio’s two strongest performances, and it’s striking that they came so close together. However, rewatched a decade later, it’s amazing how well these two films have aged. In hindsight, they foreshadow the decade to come, offering a glimpse of the post truth era.

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

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