the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On How “The Last of Us” Uses an Underground Metaphor…

Posted on February 12, 2023 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of The Last of Us at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Sunday evening while the show is on, looking at the video game adaptation as the show progresses. This week, the show’s fifth episode.

The fifth episode of The Last of Us, Endure and Survive, is a wonderful illustration of what the show does so well. Structurally, this is the kind of episode that every post-apocalyptic show inevitably does; it’s the story of a colony of survivors overwhelmed by a hostile horde. What is so effective about Endure and Survive is that it tells this conventional story in a way that plays into the larger themes of the show around it. The Last of Us has a very literary quality to it, and the episode is built around a clever central metaphor: it’s a story about rising up from underneath.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: dirt, endure and survive, ground, metaphor, revolt, rising, the last of us, undergound | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On The Third Season of “Star Trek: Picard” as Fan Service Methadone…

Posted on February 11, 2023 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of Star Trek: Picard at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Thursday morning while the show is on, looking at the third season as the show progresses. To start with, though, a look at the season as a whole.

The end of the second season of Picard effectively wrote out the bulk of the show’s new cast members, explicitly to make room for a nostalgic revival of Star Trek: The Next Generation, featuring cast members thirty years removed from that series. The result is as pandering and condescending as one might expect, suffering from many of the same fundamental issues of the first two seasons, stripping out anything distinctive or unique and replacing it with a shallow petina of nostalgia. It’s cynical, it’s hollow and it speaks to a fundamental emptiness with so much modern pop culture.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: continuity, emptiness, fan service, hollowness, meaning, nostalgia, picard, shallowness, star trek: picard, star trek: the next generation | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Wakanda Forever” Picked the Wrong Black Panther…

Posted on February 10, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on Disney+, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about the movie with spoilers, given that now everybody who might want to see the movie has had the chance to see it.

Even though it was a foregone conclusion, the identity of the new Black Panther was treated as something of a spoiler in certain fandom circles. Still, four months after the movie’s release, it seems fair to concede that the film made the worst possible choice. Shuri was the logical choice to assume the role based on comic book continuity, but she has the least compelling arc of any of the major characters in the superhero sequel. Wakanda Forever would be a much stronger movie if it made a bolder choice.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: antivax, Black Panther, controversy, disney, franchise, legacy, legacy character, letitia wright, scandal, shuri, wakanda forever | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! “The Last of Us” is Solid, Sturdy Worldbuilding…

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Darren

The third episode of The Last of Us was a highlight of contemporary television, one of the best episodes of television produced in recent memory. The fourth episode is nowhere near as transcendent, but suggests that the show has found something resembling a groove. The fourth episode is a lot of what might be described as “shoe leather.” It’s largely dedicated to set-up and world-building. However, it also feels much more assured and comfortable in its own skin.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Manifest Destiny, masculinity, please hold to my hand, push westward, road movie, serialisation, Television, the last of us, themes, Travel, western, worldbuilding | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Netflix’s Password-Sharing Clampdown…

Posted on February 8, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this week. This week saw some controversy with Netflix announcing – and then swiftly walking back – plans to cut down on password-sharing among users.

This gets at something fascinating about the challenges facing the company going forward in an attempt to maximise profitability. The urge to monetise shared accounts makes sense, but it also risks alienating users at a time when the company is trying to transition into a more traditional ad-supported model. Cutting off access to Netflix for users – especially the younger users disporportionate affected by such a clampdown – would be a very risky move for the company.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: advertising revenue, clients, films, netflix, password sharing, passwords, subscribers, Television, userbase, users | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Sundae Presents Bonus Episode 4 – “Miami Vice”

Posted on February 7, 2023 by Darren

Look, I’m a fiend for mojitos. I was delighted to be asked to join the wonderful Dean Buckley and fantastic Ciara Moloney for an episode of their film podcast, The Sundae Presents. I was especially honoured to join them for their first episode with a guest. So, no pressure!

The premise of the podcast involves one host inviting the other to watch a movie that they have not yet seen, and getting the reaction to that. Ciara and Dean had never seen Miami Vice, so it seemed like the perfect subject for a discussion like this, Michael Mann’s fascinating study of the breakdown of boundaries and identities while inventing new ways to make movies with a digital camera, it seemed like a good fit for the premise.

You can listen directly to the episode below or by clicking here.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: adaptation, borders, boundaries, crockett, globalisation, meaning, miami, miami vice, michael mann, signal noise, the sundae presents, tubbs | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On Why Television is Perhaps the Perfect Mode of Adaptation for Video Games…

Posted on February 6, 2023 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, with The Last of Us continuing on television, we took a look at the show as one of the most successful video game adaptations to date. In particular, after decades of trying and failing to translate video games to the big screen, does The Last of Us suggest that the smaller screen is the perfect place for them?

Filed under: Television | Tagged: films, in the frame, Movies, Television, the escapist, the last of us, video games | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Thrills and Disappointments of “Knock at the Cabin”…

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist during the week. With the release of Knock at the Cabin this weekend, it seemed worth taking a look at the latest movie from M. Night Shyamalan.

Knock at the Cabin is by turns fascinating and frustrating. It is a movie that works really well as a claustrophic and ambiguous thriller, a home invasion movie that is essentially a battle of wills over belief. However, it suffers somewhat from the fact that Shyamalan can’t stay within the cabin. At various points, the narrative has to become bigger and more epic, and in doing so, it unravels the tension that makes the best scenes in the movie so compelling.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: belief, faith, horror, knock at the cabin, M. Night Shyamalan, review, suspense, tension, the escapist | Leave a comment »

322. Dragonball: Evolution (-#14)

Posted on February 4, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Jonathan Victory, 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.

So this week, James Wong’s Dragonball: Evolution.

Goku is a teenage boy who has been trained in martial arts by his Grandpa Gohan, but also sworn to never use those skills for his own benefit. As Goku navigates his difficult teenage years, he finds himself drawn into an epic struggle when the villainous King Piccolo suddenly reappears with a plot to conquer the world using the seven mysterious dragon balls. With an unlikely team of allies, and a looming solar eclipse, Goku finds himself on an unlikely journey of self-discovery with the fate of the world in his hands.

At time of recording, it was ranked 14th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: anime, dragon ball, dragonball, dragonball: evolution, imdb, james marsters, James Wong, jonathan victory, justin chatwin, martial arts, Movie, podcast, The 250, The Bottom 100 | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Why That Episode of “The Last of Us” Wasn’t Filler…

Posted on February 3, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. This week saw the broadcast of Long Long Time, a spectacular episode of The Last of Us. While the episode was almost universally praise, there was some criticism that it was “filler.”

This is an interesting argument, in what it reveals about modern pop culture and what it misses about the art of storytelling. Long Long Time is thematically essential to The Last of Us. It’s an episode that establishes the actual meaningful stakes of the story, beyond the plot mechanics that spur the narrative forward. It’s easy to miss in an era where spoilers are considered a huge issue, where media is designed to be consumed at multiples of its intended speed, and where recap culture has reduced storytelling to lists of plot points. Nevertheless, it’s important.

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