Movies | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On “Raiders of the Lost Ark” as a Theme Park Ride and a Cinematic Marvel…

Posted on June 28, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Given that Raiders of the Lost Ark turned forty years old this summer, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at Steven Spielberg’s defining summer blockbuster.

In particular, Raiders of the Lost Ark is proof that it is possible for a “theme park ride” of a summer blockbuster to also function as a distillation of cinema. Everything in Raiders of the Lost Ark moves with singular purpose towards the same goal. It is a visceral and impressive technical accomplishment, but the craft involved in works in service of big ideas about the power of imagery and iconography. Form and function are indistinguishable, what the film is about becoming inseparable from how it is about it. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a triumph of filmmaking.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: black and white, cinematography, douglas slocombe, george lucas, harrison ford, indiana jone, indiana jones, light, nazis, raiders of the lost ark, steven spielberg | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “F9” is All “Family” and No Heart…

Posted on June 25, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of F9: The Fast Saga this weekend, it seemed like an opportunity to take a look at one of the paradoxes of the movie.

The Fast and Furious is a franchise about “family.” It is woven into the fabric of the franchise, and very directly into the plot of the latest film. This makes it all the more frustrating that F9 is completely lacking any humanity. With changes to the cast and weird structural choices, F9 has lost touch with the central appeal of the franchise and cut itself off from the warmest members of the ensemble. F9 is a strangely heartless movie about family.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: f9: the fast saga, fast and furious, Paul Walker, the fast and furious, the rock, Vin Diesel | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: F9 – The Fast Saga

Posted on June 24, 2021 by Darren

They say “start as you mean to go on.” So it seems appropriate that F9: The Fast Saga opens with a car crash.

The ninth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise arrives at an interesting time in the run of the series. Vin Diesel has announced that it might be time to retire the franchise, following a closing trilogy worthy of the characters. After much internal drama, two of the franchise’s core characters have spun out into their own franchise with Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw. The series is also still coming to terms with the passing of Paul Walker, who was the glue that held the franchise together. After all, what are Roman and Tej doing on the team now that Brian is gone?

Back in the ‘burgh.

Perhaps understanding that this is a tumultuous time for the Fast and Furious series, F9 makes a number of obvious plays for safe and familiar ground. Justin Lin returns as writer and co-director, a veteran of the franchise who helmed the four films between Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Fast and Furious 6. Lin directed Fast Five, which is probably the best film in the franchise, existing at the perfect intersection between the series’ origins as a gritty urban western and the bombastic blockbuster behemoth that it would become.

F9 clearly and repeatedly attempts to recapture some of the magic of Fast Five, but only serves to demonstrate that the franchise can’t go home again.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: cars, fast and furious, film, john cena, Movie, non-review review, Paul Walker, review, soap oepra, the fast and the furious, Vin Diesel | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “F9: The Fast Saga – Review”

Posted on June 22, 2021 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a three-minute film review of F9: The Fast Saga, which is releasing theatrically worldwide this weekend.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: f9, fast and furious, john cena, the fast and the furious, Vin Diesel | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: In the Heights

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Darren

When it premiered, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights was a radical piece of work.

Miranda had begun working on the musical when he was in his sophomore year of college, producing an eighty-minute version of the play in 1999. He would take a prototype of the completed musical to Waterford, Connecticut in 2005. The show would move Off-Broadway two years later, and would open on Broadway in February 2008. It was a move that very much announced the arrival of Miranda as a serious talent, and would serve as a springboard to his later success with Hamilton.

“There’ll be dancing…
Dancing in the Street…”

In the Heights is set against the backdrop of Washington Heights, a neighbourhood on the north west side of Manhattan. Inspired by Miranda’s own experience as a Puerto Rican immigrant, the musical follows the inhabitants of the neighbourhood as they navigate a changing world. The story is told through the eyes of Usnavi, the young owner of a small bodega who dreams of returning to his home in the Dominican Republic, but who needs to find a way to express his feelings for Vanessa, who is considering a move of her own to the West Village.

Miranda wrote In the Heights as a very pointed response to traditional staged musicals like West Side Story. It’s no small irony that, more than twenty years after it premiered, the film adaptation feels as much like a traditional musical as any of the classics that Miranda had railed against.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: corey hawkins, cynicism, film, gentrification, in the heights, lin-manuel miranda, Movie, musical, non-review review, nostalgia, obama, optimism, review, trump, washington heights | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Luca

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Darren

There’s an appealing low-stakes gentleness to Luca. In fact, Luca might be Pixar’s first hangout movie.

The film tells the story the eponymous sea monster. The young boy lives off the Italian Riviera, tending to the local fish and dreaming of the world above the surface. One day, following a chance encounter with a more adventurous boy named Alberto, Luca discovers that he can change form when dry. Outside the ocean, Luca and Alberto can pass as human children. Against his family’s better judgment and aware of what might happen if he is discovered, Luca decides to make the most of life above the waves.

“I wanna be where the people are…”

This description makes Luca sound like a retread of The Little Mermaid. That’s not an entirely unfair point of comparison. Both Luca and The Little Mermaid are stories about young characters who dare to dream of a life beyond the underwater world they know. However, Luca has a very distinct mood and ambiance. Luca is not really plot-driven. It lacks a central villain like Ursula or stakes as overt as the terms of Ursula’s spell. Instead, Luca is much more interested in the smaller details that mark a wonderful childhood summer.

Luca is undeniably minor Pixar, but that doesn’t mean it’s especially shallow.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, film, hangout, Hayao Miyazaki, italy, luca, monsters, Movie, non-review review, pixar, review | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “Luca – Review”

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Darren

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 3mr, animation, disney, luca, pixar, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Loki” as a Fugitive From Continuity…

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist yesterday. Following the premiere of Loki, it seemed like an opportunity to take a look at some of the meta-fictional aspects of the beloved trickster.

At its core, Loki is essentially the story of a character trying to escape their own narrative and wrest control of the story in which they’ve found themselves trapped. The title character of Loki has always been a supporting player, an antagonist or an ensemble player. Loki finds the character pushing his way to the fore, trying to figure out his own arc and his own place when he is no longer defined by the role that he has played for the past decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: canon, continuity, loki, marvel, Marvel Studios, mcu, the escapist, thor, tom hiddleston | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “In the Heights – Review in 3 Minutes”

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching 3-Minute Reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a three-minute film review of In the Heights, which released in cinemas and on HBO Max this weekend.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 3mr, gentrification, in the heights, lin-manuel miranda, musical, new york, review, the escapist, three minute review, washington heights | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On the Enduring Appeal of the MCU’s Loki…

Posted on June 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 every second Monday’s 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 content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This week, with Loki launching on Disney+, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s God of Mischief. The character has an enduring and popular appeal, but what is it that makes Loki such a breakout character?