the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On How “Promising Young Woman” Gazes Back…

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Because Promising Young Woman is garnering some awards attention, I figured it was worth a look.

Promising Young Woman is a remarkably well-constructed film. It’s a film that is very actively engaged with the idea of watching and looking – what characters choose to see, and what they choose to ignore. However, the film is also very much aware of how audiences will see the film. It is cleverly constructed in such a way as to play with the audience’s gaze, and to challenge the way that they look at the film – the way the viewer looks at its actors, its characters, and the kind of story that it is telling. It stares its audience right in the eye, and it never blinks.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: audience, awards season, GAZE, promising young woman, the escapist, video, viewer narrative | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 3, Episode 13 (“Antipas”)

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Darren

Last year, I was thrilled to spend a lot of time on The Time is Now discussing the second season of Millennium. Since the podcast has moved on to the third season, I have taken something of a step back as a guest. That said, I was flattered to get an invitation to discuss Antipas with guest host Tony Black.

Antipas is an interesting piece of television. It’s effectively a grabbag of the familiar horror movie tropes and clichés that writers Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz love: it’s The Omen, Don’t Look Now, The Shining and a few others. It’s effectively a gigantic homage to the huge influences on Carter’s work with both Millennium and The X-Files, even if it doesn’t exactly cohere as a story in its own right.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: antipas, don't look now, lucy butler, millennium, podcast, the omen, the shining, the time is now, the x-files, tony black | Leave a comment »

220. Pulp Fiction (#8)

Posted on February 6, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and with special guest Scott Mendelson, The 250 is a weekly journey through the list of the 250 best movies of all-time, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

Three stories unfold across Los Angeles over the course of three days, featuring an interlocking set of criminal characters who find their lives on an unexpected collision course. Is there any rhyme or reason to the course that these characters chart, or is it all arbitrary chaos? That’s ultimately up to the viewer to determine for themselves.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 8th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: belief, blockbuster, bruce willis, fate, independent cinema, indie, john travolta, morality, nihilism, pulp fiction, religion, scott mendelson, The 250, uma thurman | 1 Comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Deadpool” Dresses An Eighties Throwback in Superhero Spandex…

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Because Deadpool was released five years ago this month, it seemed like a good time to take a look back at the two films in the series.

Deadpool tends to be discussed in terms of the humour and self-awareness that it brought to the superhero genre. However, that isn’t the most interesting aspect of the films. Instead, what’s so fascinating about the two films is what they use that humour and self-awareness to accomplish. Deadpool effectively smuggles an eighties action movie throwback into the superhero genre by cloaking it in irony. It is a fascinating hybrid of two schools of action movie cinema.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: action movie, Deadpool, humour, irony, ryan reynolds, self-awareness, superhero, throwback | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On Why Chris Evans Returning to the MCU Would Be a Bad Idea…

Posted on February 2, 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 the Monday 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 channel – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This week, with rumours that Chris Evans might be returning to the role of Steve Rogers, I took a look at why this would be a bad thing for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has the opportunity to push ahead and evolve in a way that the comics never have been.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: captain america, chris evans, continuity, evolution, in the frame, marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, mcu, progress, steve rogers | 1 Comment »

New Podcast! The Escapist Movie Podcast – “If You’re Not Watching The Expanse, You’re Missing Out”

Posted on February 1, 2021 by Darren

The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard for the fourth episode of the year. We talked about the upcoming Spy Kids reboot, the planned release of Raya and the Last Dragon, and we expounded on The Expanse.

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

Filed under: Podcasts! | Tagged: jack packard, raya and the last dragon, spy kids, the escapist movie podcast, the expanse | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On What “The Expanse” Learned from “Game of Thrones”…

Posted on February 1, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Since I binged The Expanse and since the season finale is out this week, I figured it was worth taking a look at the show in comparison to Game of Thrones.

From its launch, The Expanse has been likened and compared to Game of Thrones. Part of this is simply down to the show being an epic within a familiar genre framework, but there is something to the comparison. While the comparison might be somewhat obvious and straightforward, it is also informative: not only in the ways that The Expanse evokes Game of Thrones, but the ways in which The Expanse differs from Game of Thrones.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: daniel abraham, g.r.r. martin, Game of Thrones, the expanse, ty franck | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! Diving Deep on “WandaVision” with “A Marvelous Escape”…

Posted on January 31, 2021 by Darren

With a slew of Marvel Studios productions coming to Disney+ over the next six months, The Escapist has launched a weekly show discussing these series. I’ll be joining the wonderful Jack Packard and the fantastic KC Nwosu to break down WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki as they come out.

This week, we take a look at the fourth episode of WandaVision, particularly the pointed metatext, the question of “checkbox” storytelling and the question of how best to pace a story being told like this.

Filed under: Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: a marvelous escape, darcy lewis, jack packard, jimmy wu, kc nwosu, metatext, sitcoms, wandavision | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “The Expanse” is the Science-Fiction Show for the Moment…

Posted on January 31, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist this evening. Since I binged The Expanse and since the season finale is out this week, I figured it was worth taking a look at the show as one of the defining television series of the past ten years.

Every generation gets a science-fiction show that reflects its particular anxieties. The Expanse is a show that engages aggressively with the concerns of the moment. It is a show about fragmentation, about nationalism, about inequality, about exploitation and about power. In the same way that Star Trek spoke to the uncertainty and tumult of the sixties, and Battlestar Galactica spoke to the nightmare of the War on Terror, The Expanse resonates with a world still coming to terms with the aftermath of the Great Recession.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Amazon, amazon prime, late capitalism, science fiction, Television, the escapist, the expanse | Leave a comment »

219. Dom za vešanje (Time of the Gypsies) – This Just In (#220)

Posted on January 30, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and with special guests Jason Coyle and Ronan Doyle, 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, Emir Kusturica’s Dom za vešanje.

Perhan lives a simple life in a gypsy community outside of Skopje. He dreams of marrying Azra, but his social standing is not high enough. Events conspire to take Perhan away from his community, embarking on a trip to Italy with local legend Ahmed and with the promise of a new and prosperous life waiting for him. Inevitably, Perhan discovers that this life is not what was promised, and faces the possibility that he might also be something different than he expected himself to be.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 220th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.