the m0vie blog

327. Child’s Play 3 (#—)

Posted on July 1, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Charlene Lydon, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This week, Jack Bender’s Child’s Play 3.

After years of legal trouble arising from a high-profile controversy surrounding an alleged “killer doll”, Play Pals is back in business. However, the first doll off the line turns out to have a pretty mean attitude. Reconstituted from the remains of the original possessed doll, Charles Lee Ray once again finds himself trapped in a plastic body. Setting out to avenge himself on Andy Barclay, Chucky discovers that his old adversary has been sent to military school. This time, it seems, it’s war.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: andy barclay, Brad Dourif, charlene lydon, child's play, child's play 3, chucky, doll, gender, horror, killer doll, masculinity, military school, slasher | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Strange New Worlds” Finally Confronts a Long-Standing “Star Trek” Blindspot…

Posted on June 25, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier this week. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. So we thought we’d take a look at the second episode of the second season.

Strange New Worlds is obviously a nostalgic appeal to classic Star Trek, particularly the Berman era of the nineties. However, the show has been somewhat reluctant to engage with some of the blindspots of that era, in particular its refusal to acknowledge or engage with the ongoing debate around gay rights. Ad Astra Per Aspera represents a long overdue reckoning with this failure on the part of the franchise, constructing a very classic Star Trek narrative that reckons very overtly with the marginalisation of these minorities.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: ad astra per aspera, allegory, continuity, homosexuality, metaphor, queer, star trek, strange new worlds, transgender | Leave a comment »

338. Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (Amélie) (#102)

Posted on June 24, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and with special guest Síomha McQuinn, This Just In is a subset of The 250 podcast, looking at notable new arrivals on the list of the 250 best movies of all-time, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain.

Amélie Poulain has always been something of a special person, somebody who sees the world in a way that nobody else around her understands. Living a life of quiet desperate, freak events throw Amélie into the life of a complete stranger. The feeling is exciting to Amélie, who takes it as her mission to start meddling in the lives of all those around her. However, Amélie very quickly discovers that such meddling is rarely as tidy as one might hope.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 102nd best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: Movies, The 250 | Tagged: film, france, imdb, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, lady di, manic pixie dream girl, Movie, paris, podcast, princess diana, quirky, síomha mcquinn, The 250, whimsy | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Superhero Genre’s Existential Crisis…

Posted on June 23, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With no major new releases this week, and with the recent release of both Secret Invasion and The Flash, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the state of the modern superhero genre.

While there are ongoing debates about whether “superhero fatigue” has set in, these are largely besides the point. Watching contemporary superhero films, there is a palpable anxiety underpinning these blockbusters. Increasingly, these superhero films are about superhero films. In particular, they are movies and television shows that make an existential argument for their continued importance and necessity.

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

Filed under: Movies, Television | Tagged: existential, films, must there be a superman?, secret invasion, superhero, superhero fatigue, superhero genre, Television, the flash | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Secret Invasion” Finally Foregrounds Nick Fury…

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Darren

We’ll be running weekly reviews of Secret Invasion at The Escapist. To start with, the premiere.

Secret Invasion is notable as the first Marvel Studios project to truly foreground Nick Fury, a character who has been essential to the shared universe dating back to the closing credits of Iron Man. It’s interesting that it took the shared universe fifteen years to build a narrative around Samuel L. Jackson. Secret Invasion adopts an interesting approach to the character, treating him as an avatar for the increasingly beleagured media franchise, a veteran and hero that might be over the hill with his best years behind him.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: continuity, marvel, mcu, nick fury, secret invasion, superhero fatigue, veteran | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Black Mirror” as a Movie About the Limits of the Empathy Machine…

Posted on June 21, 2023 by Darren

We’re launching a new column at The Escapist, called Out of Focus. With the sixth season of Black Mirror releasing on Netflix last week, it seemed like a good opportunity to delve into one of the defining shows of the modern moment.

Black Mirror is often framed as a technophobic show, asking, “what if phones… but too much?” However, this is an inherently reductive way of looking at the series, which is much more about humanity than it is about people. In many ways, the show is about how technology reflects humanity’s worst impulses back at them, and the fear that cinema and television – along with other forms of media – serve as barriers to empathy rather than windows to it.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Black Mirror, charlie brooker, empathy, humanity, media, phones, science fiction, Technology | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Why Supergirl is the Best Part of “The Flash”…

Posted on June 20, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist at the weekend. With the release of The Flash, it seemed worth considering the best part of the movie: Sasha Calle’s Supergirl.

For decades, Warner Bros. has struggled with the character of Superman, trying to find a way to make that character relevant for the modern world. What’s interesting about The Flash is that it finds a unique and compelling answer to this question with its take on Supergirl, presenting an immigrant who arrives to a world that is inherently hostile and xenophobic, which treats her as less than a person, and yet somehow finds the strength to fight for that planet anyway. It’s just a shame that she’s ultimately wasted and discarded by the film.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: sasha calle, supergirl, superman, the escapist, the flash | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Flash” as a Movie About the Horror of “The Flash”…

Posted on June 19, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With The Flash releasing this weekend, it seemed like as good an opportunity to talk about the themes of the movie, and how those ideas exist in direct opposition to its central purpose.

Thematically, The Flash is a story about how the idea of a “reset” is fundamentally pointless. It is a tale about how individuals are often the sum total of their life experiences, including the traumatic ones, and that any attempt to erase those traumas would be to erase the person that they created. However, this is very much at odds with what the film functionally is. It is an opportunity for Warner Bros. to shift around their established continuity and intellectual property, to reset characters and to recast actors. In short, The Flash is a movie about its own monstrosity.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: continuity, film, intellectual property, metaphor, Movie, production, reboot, reference, reset, the flash, theme, trauma | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Flash” as a Two-Hour-Long Shareholders’ Memo…

Posted on June 18, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist on Friday. With the release of The Flash in cinemas, it seemed like a good opportunity to consider the movie.

What is interesting about The Flash is that it is a movie almost entirely devoid of any artistic sentiment whatsoever. It is a movie that does not exist because anybody working on it had a brilliant idea that needed to be realised. It exists largely because Warner Bros. decided that they needed a Flash movie, and so – against all laws of nature and reality – simply willed that movie into existence.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: auteur, director, Ezra Miller, intellectual property, media, plot, reality, shareholders, the flash, theme, Vision, Warner Bros, warner discovery | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Strange New Worlds” Performs “Star Trek”…

Posted on June 17, 2023 by Darren

There is a fascinating recurring emphasis on the idea of performance within Strange New Worlds. In particular, the idea of performing Star Trek. It is not enough for Strange New Worlds to be Star Trek, or even to engage in the familiar Star Trek tropes. The show has to constantly remind and reassure viewers that it is Star Trek. This is distracting and ultimately undermines the series, which seems to spend more time asserting that it is Star Trek than it does actually being Star Trek.

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