Movies | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On “Strange Worlds” as a Love Letter to Disney’s Forgotten “Boys’ Own” Adventures…

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday. With the release of Strange World, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the latest animated film from Disney.

Many of the more recent high-profile Disney animated films have been anchored in the brand’s “princess” iconography, feeling like extensions of classics like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Part of what is interesting about Strange World is that it is a movie rooted in another, rather under-explored, chapter in the history of Disney’s animated filmmaking. Strange World is best understood as an extension of the wave of oft-forgotten “Adventureland” movies of the turn of the millennium, those movies aimed more overtly at boys, like Tarzan, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: adventure, adventureland, atlantis: the lost empire, disney, escapist, in the frame, strange worlds, tarzan, the escapist, treasure planet | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Radical Empathy of “Knives Out” and “Glass Onion”…

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist on Friday. With the release of Glass Onion in theatres, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about Benoit Blanc, the film’s protagonist.

Glass Onion is built around the idea of murder mysteries and puzzleboxes. However, like Knives Out before it, the film is something of a criticism of a rigidly rationalist approach to detective fiction, of the idea that solving a crime is a strictly mechanical process. Instead, both Knives Out and Glass Onions are movies about the importance of empathy and humanism in understanding the true moral nature of crime. This is most obvious in Benoit Blanc, who is introduced as an outside observer of these crimes, but cannot escape their gravity.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: benoit blanc, crime, detective, detective fiction, empathy, glass onion, head, heart, humanism, in the frame, knives out, logic, morality, mystery, puzzles, rationality, Rian Johnson, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Enterprising Individuals – “Star Trek Into Darkness, Part 1”

Posted on November 24, 2022 by Darren

I am always thrilled to get a chance to talk about Star Trek with other fans, so I was thrilled at the invitation to join the wonderful Aaron Coker on Enterprising Individuals to talk about Star Trek Into Darkness. We split the discussion into two parts, and this is the first.

It seems safe to describe Star Trek Into Darkness as perhaps the most polarising and divisive of the Star Trek movies. However, it’s also the most interesting. It represents the culmination of efforts to turn Star Trek into a populist and accessible blockbuster franchise, but it also remains true to the spirit of the franchise. Star Trek Into Darkness is undeniably a blockbuster of the late Obama era, one preoccupied with the legacy of the War on Terror and fascinated by the loss of utopian innocence that seemed promised with the election of Obama. It’s also just a thrilling action spectacle with a broad appeal.

You can listen to the episode here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts!, Star Trek | Tagged: aaron coker, Benedict Cumberbatch, chris pine, jj abrams, khan, Lucas, spielberg, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness | Leave a comment »

313. Ratatouille – Bird Watching 2022 (#219)

Posted on November 19, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Deirdre Molumby and Graham Day, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, we’re continuing a season focusing on the work of one particular director: Brad Bird’s Ratatouille.

Remi is a French rat with a taste for the finer things, quite literally. Remi longs to be a chef. When circumstances bring the young rat to Paris, and into the kitchen of a legendary restaurant, Remi is given the chance of a lifetime to seize his dream. He just needs to grab it by the hair and pull hard.

At time of recording, it was ranked 219th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Movies, The 250 | Tagged: animation, art, Bob Iger, Brad Bird, Brian Dennehy, chefs, creativity, disney, france, janeane garofalo, market, Michael Eisner, objectivism, paris, Patton Oswalt, pixar, proust, Ratatouille, rats, sexism, Steve Jobs, voltaire | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and How the MCU Grew Up With Its Audience…

Posted on November 17, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier this week. With the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and the end of Phase 4, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at one of the more interesting trends within the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe: the way that it has grown up with its audience.

The audience that went to see Iron Man fourteen years ago are no longer teenagers, or even young adults. They are now adults, many of whom will have settled down and started families. It is entirely possible that a couple who went to see The Incredible Hulk on their first date ended up taking their child to Thor: Love and Thunder. One of the more interesting aspects of the modern MCU has been the way that its plotting and themes have evolved to reflect that, with many of its once roguish heroes becoming biological or surrogate parents.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: adults, adventure, age, audience, children, family, growth, maturity, mcu, parents, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The English” and the British Western…

Posted on November 15, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday evening. With the release of The English on Amazon Prime in the United States and on BBC in the United Kingdom, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about the peculiar phenomenon of the British western.

The western is a quintessentially American genre. It is a foundation myth for the nation. As such, it is an awkward fit for British pop culture, given Britain’s historical relationship to the United States and the fact that Britain’s frontiers have never looked like that. However, given the intricacies of Britain’s relationship to its former colony, it is no surprise that the western has long been the subject of fascination for the British, and that the nation has put its own slant on the genre.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: america, americana, british television, british western, escapist, in the frame, roast beef western, Spaghetti Western, the escapist, the western | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On “Black Adam” and the Debate Over Superheroes Killing…

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Darren

We’re thrilled to be launching a fortnightly video companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch every second Monday, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel. And the video will typically be separate from the written content. 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, we took a look at the debate over superheroes killing, which is a major thematic point in the recent blockbuster Black Adam. It’s an interesting point of discussion, but one that often overlooks and misses the larger trend within the superhero genre. That sort of debate doesn’t happen over other pulp heroes, like cowboys or gangsters or pirates, so what is it that makes superheroes a special case?

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Black Adam, films, in the frame, killing, man of steel, marvel, mcu, Movies, pulp heroes, soldiers, superheroes, superman, the lord of the rings, themes, video series, videos, violence, war movies | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and Complicated Postcolonial Politics…

Posted on November 13, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. This week marks the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and so it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the movie’s complicated postcolonial politics.

Wakanda Forever is a movie fascinated by the consequences of colonialism. Wakanda is defined by the fact that it has never experienced colonialism or imperialism, and Wakanda Forever throws the nation state into conflict with Talokan, a nation with an entire history shaped and defined by colonial violence. This gets at one of the central tensions of Wakanda Forever, in that it is a movie fascinated by the violence commited by victims of colonialism, rather than the violence inflicted by colonial powers.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Black Panther, black panther: wakanda, colonialism, escapist, the escapist, wakanda forever | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Black Panther” and the Limits of Exceptionalism…

Posted on November 11, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever this weekend, it seemed as good an opportunity as any to look at what sets the film apart from so many modern superhero movies.

Wakanda Forever is a superhero movie with an absent centre, built around the loss of actor Chadwick Boseman. Writer and director Ryan Coogler leans into this, building a superhero movie that is essentially about the limits of exceptionalism and the understanding that sometimes excellence alone is not enough to prevail. In a genre that is shaped and defined by power fantasies, Wakanda Forever embraces and explores a form of powerlessness that is radical within the confines of the superhero narrative, and one that grants the movie a thoughtful resonance in light of the years since the original’s release.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: black lives matter, Black Panther, black panther: wakanda forever, chadwick boseman, grief, loss, pandemic, the escapist, wakanda forever | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a Loving Tribute and a So-So Film”

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie and television 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 five-minute film review Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which is releasing in cinemas this weekend.