the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On How “Moon Knight” Offers an Interesting Solution to the MCU’s Villain Problem…

Posted on April 6, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Moon Knight, which is streaming weekly on Disney+. The second episode of the show released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.

One of the more consistent criticisms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the idea that it suffers from a “villain problem.” While this is perhaps an over-simplification of the situation, there is some truth to the suggestion. Part of what makes Moon Knight so interesting is that the streaming series posits an interesting solution to this long-standing issue. It offers a superhero who can legitimately serve as his own worst enemy.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: disney, ethan hawke, fascism, harrow, marc spector, marvel, marvel villains, mcu, moon knight, Oscar Isaac, steven grant, villain problem | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How the Fate of the MCU Rests on “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”…

Posted on April 4, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the looming release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seemed like a good time to reflect on how so much of the fate of the Marvel Cinematic Universe came to rely on he sequel to Doctor Strange.

Doctor Strange was a solid midtier entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was warmly, but not raptuously, received by both audiences and critics. However, there is something fascinating in how the studio has positioned Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as essentially the franchise’s first true “event” movie since Avengers: Endgame. Indeed, there’s a surprising amount riding on the film, following the performance of the previous three Marvel Studios films and the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Batman.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: doctor strange, doctor strange in the multiverse of madness, escapist, in the frame, marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios, mcu, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and the New Age of Disposable Media…

Posted on April 3, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist yesterday. One of the big news stories of this week concerned the apparent (albeit accidental) censorship of an episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+.

While the matter was eventually resolved following news coverage and outcry on social media, there is something unsettling about how easily that mistake happened and how readily it could have been missed or overlooked. It underscores the risks of trusting companies like Disney to serve as the digital curators of their own legacy, particularly in a landscape where so much of film and television has alreayd been lost. In some ways, it suggests that the transition to streaming has rendered film and television truly disposable in a way that they haven’t really been in almost half a century.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: censorship, corporations, disney, film preservation, legacy media, ownership, physical media, piracy, preservation, streaming | Leave a comment »

281. Idi i Smotri (Come and See) (#106)

Posted on April 2, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Lee Murkey, 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, Elem Klimov’s Idi i Smotri.

As the Second World War rages, the inhabitants of Belarus prepare for the sweeping advance of the Nazis from the West. A young boy named Flyora dreams of joining the local partisans so that he can fight in the guerilla war against the hostile invaders. However, Flyora quickly discovers that war is not a place for heroes, and that any childhood innocence will soon be left behind.

At time of recording, it was ranked 106th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: antiwar, come and see, elem klimov, holocaust, idi i smotri, lee murkey, nazis, russian film, soviet cinema, tarkovsky, The 250, war | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Fantastic Beasts” Fails to Capture the Magic of “Harry Potter”…

Posted on April 1, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the upcoming release of Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at one of the more inert major franchises of the past decade or so.

The success of the Harry Potter movies made the extension of the franchise inevitable; and the intellectual property has expanded into theme parks and stage shows. However, the attempts to expand the world into feature films has met with frustrating results. So far, the Fantastic Beasts franchise has felt a little lifeless and inert, a blockbuster franchise driven by exposition and apocalyptic spectacle, rather than allowing the audience to really immerse themselves in the world as they did with the earlier stories.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: brand extension, fantastic beasts, franchise, harry potter, intellectual property, JK Rowling, wizarding world, wizards | 2 Comments »

New Escapist Video! “Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is an Adequate ’90s Family Movie”

Posted on March 28, 2022 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 Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which is in theatres in the U.K. and Ireland on Friday and in the United States next week.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 3mr, review, sonic 2, sonic the hedgehog, sonic the hedghog 2, the escapist, three minute review | Leave a comment »

279. The Conversation (#—)

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley, 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, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation.

Harry Caul is one of the best surveillance operators in America. However, when Harry finds himself in possession of a potentially inflammatory recording with very real consequences, he finds hismel at a crossroads. Can the professional eavesdropper remain a passive observer in the drama unfolding around him, or will events force him into a more active role?

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

Continue reading →

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: belief, Catholicism, francis ford coppola, gene hackman, nixon, podcast, religion, spying, surveillance, The 250, the conversation, voyeurism, watergate | 1 Comment »

New Escapist Column! On What the Netflix Marvel Shows Bring to Disney+…

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the arrival of the Netflix Marvel streaming shows on Disney+ last week, it seemed like a good opportunity to take stock of where the service’s brand was at.

Disney has established a reputation as a family-friendly company, often outsourcing its more adult-oriented fare to distinct subsidiaries with their own identities. This is arguably less sustainable in the streaming age, as companies are consolidating and the key to a streaming service’s viability might lie in the variety of its content. So Disney+ finds itself at a crossroads, forced to chose between its long-term appeal to a diverse array of audiences and its parent company’s history of wholesome family entertainment. The arrival of the Netflix Marvel shows provide a challenge and an opportunity.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: adults, brand, daredevil, family, identity, marvel, mature, netflix, streaming | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The TARDIS Crew – Andrew Cartmel’s Doctor Who and deconstructing children’s television…

Posted on March 19, 2022 by Darren

I was thrilled to be invited to join the great Ben and Baz Greenland for an episode of their new podcast, The TARDIS Crew.

The guys invited me on to talk about a number of subjects, but we eventually settled on a discussion of the Sylvester McCoy and Andrew Cartmel era of Doctor Who. In particular, the way in which Cartmel and his creative team capitalised on the creative strengths of the production at a point where the show was very much on its last legs. Understanding the limitations of the family science-fiction show, and the question of how it could or couldn’t compete in an increasingly special-effects-given genre, Cartmel landed on a radical approach to Doctor Who: a deconstruction and subversion of children’s television.

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

Filed under: Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: Andrew Cartmel, baz greenland, ben greenland, doctor who, the tardis crew | 2 Comments »

New Escapist Column! On “The Batman” as a Movie About Life Lived Behind Screens…

Posted on March 18, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With The Batman continuing to perform well at the box office, it seemed like an opportunity to take another look at the film.

Much has been made of how much The Batman owes to David Fincher’s se7en and Zodiac. However, the film also owes a lot to the director’s work on both Fight Club and The Social Network. At its core, The Batman is a story about masculine violence and what happens when life is lived behind a screen. The result is a film that manages to riff on some of the most interesting films of the past quarter-century, filtering them through the lens of the superhero genre and reframing them for a modern context.

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