the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On How “The Suicide Squad” Deconstructs Amanda Waller…

Posted on August 6, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of The Suicide Squad, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at one small-but-clever aspect of James Gunn’s superhero sequel.

The character of Amanda Waller is a pop culture archetype. She is an example of the ruthless intelligence operative who will cross whatever line it takes in pursuit of what she believes to be the greater good. Outside of comic books, one need only look at the character of Jack Bauer. Within the modern superhero landscape, the archetype is embodied by Nick Fury. These characters might be edgy or ambiguous, but they are also undeniably cool. Gunn’s approach to Waller in The Suicide Squad is interesting in large part because it rejects that idea of effortless cool in favour of something a lot blunter and more horrific.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 9/11, Amanda Waller, in the frame, jack bauer, James Gunn, nick fury, suicide squad, the escapist, the suicide squad, the war on terror, viola davis, war on terror | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Mr. TARDIS – “Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall Leaving. What Next? + Poorly Animated”

Posted on August 5, 2021 by Darren

I was thrilled to be invited to join the very generous Will Carlisle for one of his weekly live streams at Mr. TARDIS.

I joined him to discuss the news that Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall would be departing Doctor Who together, to explore the complicated politics of the era and to ponder what might potentially follow. It was a fun and broad discussion, and I was delighted to join Will to have the conversation.

You can watch the full live stream below.

Filed under: Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: Chris Chibnall, doctor who, jodie whittaker, livestream, will carlisle | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Censor

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Darren

Censor is a love letter to the era of so-called “video nasties” and an exploration of the moral panic that tends to encompass discussions of the genre.

Niamh Algar plays Enid, the eponymous moral guardian with a traumatic back story who has committed herself to protecting the nation’s sanity by watching and rating the low-rent horrors flooding the market. Over dinner conversation, Enid takes offense when her mother asks if she has seen any good movies recently. “It’s not entertainment, Mam,” Enid snaps. “I’m protecting people.” It’s very clear that Enid believes this, taking meticulous notes and engaging in rigorous debates about exactly how much eye-gouging the public can tolerate.

The Green Night.

On the surface, Censor is a movie with a plot that loosely suggests something akin to Hardcore or 8mm. Throughout the film, hints are dropped about Enid’s traumatic past, including the mysterious disappearance of her younger sister while the two girls were playing together. When the latest film from a provocative auteur named Frederick North crosses her desk, Enid seems to recognise one of the on-screen victims. Is her sister still alive? Has she been swallowed by this world of exploitation horror cinema? More to the point, can Enid finally rescue her and bring her home?

The beauty of Censor lies in how co-writer and director Prano Bailey-Bond plays with this familiar set-up, building a movie around the idea that horror movies are a form of escapism for moral guardians as much as the intended audience, a space into which these people can project their own nightmares and anxieties without ever having to confront the reality of the world around them.

Signalling concern.

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: censor, film, horror, horror cinema, margaret thatcher, Movie, niamh algar, non-review review, prano bailey-bond, review, video nasties | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On Why “The Expanse” Was Shut Out of the Emmys…

Posted on August 3, 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.

With the Emmy nominations earlier last month, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at how the awards work. In particular, why they tend to overlook particular shows, despite positive reviews and consistent levels of quality. In particular, whether the institution has a longstanding bias against genre television or if there are other factors at play.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: awards, emmys, escapist, in the frame, the escapist, the expanse | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the the Folly of Franchising the Predator…

Posted on August 3, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday. With news that Dan Trachtenberg’s new Predator film might receive an edit for PG-13, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the difficulty in trying to reshape the iconic eighties movie monster into a modern franchise.

The appeal of the Predator is very simple. It hunts. It’s a concept that is perhaps best suited to a mode of franchising that doesn’t really exist any more, a set of reasonably budgeted sequel films that swap out characters and locations while retaining the core concept. However, modern franchises demand more. They demand world building, mythology, scale, spectacle and a shared universe. There’s something absurd about trying to retroactively apply that to the Predator as a concept.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: blockbusters, franchise, hollywood, in the frame, predator, sequels, shared universe, the predator | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Last Letter From Your Lover

Posted on August 2, 2021 by Darren

The Last Letter from Your Lover is an adaptation of Jojo Moynes’ breakout romantic novel of the same name, and it very much feels like a cinematic adaptation of a beloved novel.

The basic premise of The Last Letter from Your Lover is a nested love story. While working on a feature about another subject, an intrepid journalist named Ellie Haworth finds a mysterious love letter. This love letter suggests a secret affair in sixties high society. The letters are clearly addressed to Jennifer Stirling, a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage to a wealthy industrialist, who finds herself navigating her own past following an accident that leaves her with amnesia.

How I Met Your Lover.

It’s a solid set-up for a romantic drama, with The Last Letter from Your Lover paralleling both Ellie and Jennifer in their investigations into Jennifer’s mysterious past in an effort to explore and investigate the sordid affair that potentially could derail Jennifer’s entire life. The Last Letter from Your Lover benefits from two charming lead performances from Felicity Jones as Ellie and Shailene Woodley as Jennifer, along with strong direction from Augustine Frizzell.

Unfortunately, The Last Letter from Your Lover never feels like a convincing screen romance, but instead a shadow of a much more engaging love story on the page.

Letter be.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: affair, felicity jones, film, jojo moynes, Movie, non-review review, review, romance, Shailene Woodley, the last letter from your lover | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Profile

Posted on August 2, 2021 by Darren

Profile is the latest entry in the so-called “Screen Life” series, produced by Timur Bekmambetov. It is also notable as the first entry in the series to be directed by Bekmambetov himself.

The “Screen Life” series is effectively a set of heightened genre movies that unfold through the screen of a laptop, narratives that unfold through chat boxes, Skype chats, playlists and file transfers. It’s an innovative and experimental approach to storytelling. While the results – Unfriended, Searching… and Unfriended: Dark Web – have varied in quality, the hook has always been fascinating. So much of modern life is navigated through screens that it is fascinating to see movies try to reflect that. Indeed, there’s an argument that movies like Unfriended play better on computer screens than they do in theatres or on televisions.

Translating the story to screen.

Profile adheres to the cinematic conventions of these sorts of stories, but it feels unnecessarily constrained in other ways. Each of the three previous films has been a genre exercise told through a computer screen. Unfriended and Dark Web are teenage horror movies, while Searching… is a delightfully schlocky nineties thriller reimagined through a web camera. In contrast, the subject matter of Profile is decidedly weighter. The film is based on the non-fiction book In the Skin of a Jihadist by Anna Ereklle, looking at online recruitment of young British girls by Islamic extremists.

This is an appreciably more grounded and more serious piece of subject matter than something like Unfriended or Searching…, and it’s interesting to see this cinematic language applied to this subject matter. After all, this is a digitally native story and a tale about the process of mediating the world through computer screens. However, Profiles suffers slightly from the need to frame this subject matter not through the lens of a web camera, but through the prism of genre, to transform something very real and very threatening into a heightened cartoonish thriller.

A new Skype of thriller…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: daesh, extremism, facebook, film, grooming, internet, isis, Movie, non-review review, Online, profile, recruitment, review, screen life, skype, thriller | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Hollywood’s Next Franchising Trend, the “Requel”…

Posted on August 1, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist today. The success of David Gordon Green’s Halloween and the announcement of his upcoming Exorcist trilogy seemed like a good time to discuss one of the more interesting modern trends in studio franchising: the rebooted sequel, or the “requel.” The idea is that if an original movie is iconic, but subsequent sequels have devalued the brand, the studio can just roll the franchise back to the earlier beloved film and effectively start franchising again from that point onwards.

It is a frustrating and unsettling trend that illustrates the cannibalistic feeding frenzy that is modern franchising. Hollywood has already franchised every viable property, but this approach allows studios a second (or third) bite of the apple by effectively erasing perceived mistakes and rolling the clock back to earlier and more nostalgia-friendly points in the shared continuity. It’s interesting to see this approach becoming increasingly mainstream.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: canon, continuity, david gordon green, Franchising, halloween, intellectual property, prequel, reboot, requel, requels, sequels, terminator, the escapist, the exorcist | 2 Comments »

New Escapist Column! On How the Thirteenth Doctor is Already Awaiting Rehabilitation…

Posted on August 1, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist yesterday. With the announcement that both Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker would be leaving Doctor Who after this season and a string of specials, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at their time on the show.

In particular, how this three-season stretch marks the first time since the revival that an actor’s interpretation of the Doctor has been left awaiting rehabilitation. Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor was a striking opportunity for the show, a talented actor in a bold reinvention. However, despite the combination of the actor’s enthusiasm and the audience’s goodwill, the show itself failed to deliver on her potential. This essentially places Whittaker in the same position as Colin Baker. The Thirteenth Doctor will have to look outside the show to find stories and characterisation worthy of the actor involved.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Chris Chibnall, doctor who, escapist, jodie whittaker, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 7, Episode 4 (“Millennium”)

Posted on July 31, 2021 by Darren

With The X-Cast moving on to coverage of the seventh season of The X-Files, and the episode Millennium fast approaching, it seemed like a good time to resurrect the Time is Now podcast. So I joined Kurt North to talk about the controversial episode.

Millennium is a very strange episode of television. It is designed to serve as a de facto series finale for Chris Carter’s Millennium while folding it into the mythology of The X-Files. However, it is an episode where two of the three credited writers have never worked on Millennium, and which builds to a climax of the mythology of Millennium which doesn’t really fit with anything that appeared on screen. However, it is also the episode that builds to the first on-screen kiss between Mulder and Scully, which creates an interesting tension in terms of the episode’s priorities.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.