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New Escapist Column! On 2022 as the Return of Spectacle…

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. With the year wrapping up, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the year in cinema. In particular, one of the big unifying trends in the year’s blockbusters, which balanced a celebration and a fear of spectacle.

This was the year that “movies were back.” Many of the year’s biggest blockbusters were celebrations of blockbuster cinema in its purest form, from the IMAX cinematography of Top Gun: Maverick to the immersive 3D of Avatar: The Way of Water to the breakout international success of RRR. However, there was also an anxiety about the power of spectacle and the toll that it takes, whether on its audience or on its subject. This played out in movies like Nope or Elvis. There was also a clear worry that this might be the end of it all, playing out in movies like Babylon or even Blonde.

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

Non-Review Review: Wild at Heart

I’ve always had a soft spot for David Lynch, if only because – much like David Cronenberg – you always got the sense that his artistic vision was pretty unfettered by concerns about broad appeal or studio policy or anything like that. There’s a wonderful sense of freedom, in how he works. There’s a great quote from the guys at Pixar that they don’t make movies for kids, they make movies for themselves – if other people happen to enjoy it, well… that’s great too. That sums up a lot of what I respect about Lynch. Wild at Heart isn’t perhaps one of those moments where Lynch’s interests manage to overlap with truly great cinema (as they do, I would argue, for Mullholland Drive, Blue Velvet and The Straight Story), but it isn’t so completely scattershot as to be impenetrable, either.

Dancing in the... highways?

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Non-Review Review: True Romance

True Romance is one of those films I’m surprised never found a stronger audience, even retroactively. It features a screenplay from Quentin Tarantino which really put the future director on the map, but it also features a huge number of pre-stardom appearances from actors as diverse as James Gandolfini, Brad Pitt and Chris Penn. The movie holds together fantastically, but perhaps it works better as a collection of scenes than as a fully-realised movie – but, when the scenes are this good, that’s not necessarily a heavy criticism.

It's Whirley ride...

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