Freud | the m0vie blog

226. Zack Snyder’s Justice League (#86)

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Graham Day, The 250 is a fortnightly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Zack Snyder’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

Following the death of Superman, Batman sets about putting together a team of superheroes to fight a threat that is charging at Earth from across the cosmos.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 86th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: aquaman, art, batman, brutality, comic books, Content, Cyborg, darkseid, deconstruction, directors cut, fascism, frank miller, Freud, graham day, joss whedon, justice league, martin scorsese, masculinity, mother boxes, ray fisher, reconstruction, superman, symbolism, The 250, the flash, unity, violence, wonder woman, zack snyder | Leave a comment »

160. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (#15)

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Luke Dunne, The 250 is a fortnightly 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, Irvin Kershner’s The Empire Strikes Back.

It is a time of galactic strife. Following the Empire’s defeat at the Battle of Yavin, the Rebel Alliance finds itself on the run. A surprise attack on the ice planet of Hoth scatters the rebel fighters to the wind, with Luke embarking on training with a mysterious figure named Yoda while Han Solo attempts to ferry Princess Leia to safety. However, things are not as they appear.

At time of recording, it was ranked 15th on the list of the best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: bespin, cocaine, dad stuff, Darth Vader, dogs, eighties, empire, Freud, george lucas, luke dunne, star wars, star wars holiday special, the empire strikes back, vader, yoda | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Phantom Thread

Posted on February 2, 2018 by Darren

Phantom Thread is certainly a beautiful film.

In many ways it resembles the dresses designed by the artist at its centre. It is elegant, well-composed, stylish. It looks perfect and has just the right texture. Phantom Thread is a meticulously-produced piece of work, with every technical aspect of the film delivered to the highest possible standard. More than that, Phantom Thread is a very clever and incisive film, one that arguably feels much more suited to this particular cultural moment than Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Tailored to the role.

However, Phantom Thread feels like one of Reynolds Woodcock’s dresses in another manner. As fantastic as it might look, it is not designed for living. There is one memorable sequence in the middle of the film where Woodcock actually confiscates the dress from a patron because it is not being treated with the pomp and ceremony that he expects. These are dresses for display, designed to leave observers breathless. It never ignites the same passion as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, never feeling as anchored in appreciable human emotion.

Phantom Thread often feels too much like strolling through Woodcock’s parlour, the audience invited to examine the sheer craft and cleverness of what is being done, but warned in the starkest possible terms not to touch anything. There is beauty, but no feeling.

Make it sew.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: artists, Daniel Day-Lewis, ego, Freud, hitchcock, masculinity, mothering, non-review review, Paul Thomas Anderson, phantom thread, review | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: A Dangerous Method

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Darren

Charles Issawi once formulated Syre’s Law, named for noted academic Wallace Stanley Sayre. “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake,” he argued. “That is why academic politics are so bitter.” Set in the shadow of not one but two looming European conflicts, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, adapted from the play The Talking Cure, makes sure that we know just how bitter academic politics can be. Ably supported by two strong performances from its three leads, the movie is at its most fascinating in exploring the ideological and personal relationships of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, but loses a large amount of momentum when we’re asked to accept Keira Knightley as a mad Russian.