jared harris | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On the Timelessness and Timeliness of “Foundation”…

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of the first two episodes of Foundation on Apple TV+, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at Isaac Asimov’s hugely influential science-fiction series.

Foundation casts a long shadow over American science-fiction, its influence felt on projects like Star Wars and Star Trek. However, while it has been adapted as a radio play, the new television show marks the first successful effort to bring the show to screen. What is it that makes Foundation so difficult to adapt? Why has it taken so long for such a foundational text to come to film or television? How is a science-fiction saga that began in the late forties and carried on into the fifties still relevant today?

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: apple tv, escapist, foundation, in the frame, jared harris, science fiction, the escapist | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Mortal Instruments – City of Bones

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Darren

The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones is just about wry enough and smart enough to launch itself snugly into the gap in the “young adult” movie market left by the end of franchises like Twilight or Harry Potter. This franchise-launcher, based on Cassandra Clare’s 2007 novel, is at its best when it’s self-aware, with young starlet Lilly Collins reacting with quiet bemusement to the surreal urban fantasy or Irish supporting actor Robert Sheehan picking holes in the plot.

It’s over-the-top and deliciously campy, but indulgently so. Refusing to merely bask in the clichés of urban fantasy, The Mortal Instruments practically revels in them. Subtext becomes supra-text, twists are shrewdly signposted in a way welcoming to genre aficionados and there’s an endearing sense of pulp to the whole thing. The movie only really suffers when it tries to take things entirely seriously, slowing down for an almost interminable second act and casting the so-wooden-he-should-probably-be-varnished Jamie Campbell Bower as the obligatory “mysterious hunky teenager.”

A cut above?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Cassandra Clare, City of Bones, Clary, george lucas, Harald Zwart, Jamie Campbell Bower, jared harris, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Joseph Campbell, Lily Collins, Mortal Instrument, Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Robert Sheehan, Young-adult fiction | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Darren

The first Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes was a pulpy pleasure, an enjoyable steampunk occult mystery with a casual sense of fun and two solid central performances with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson respectively. Unfortunately, the sequel, A Game of Shadows, doesn’t seem to be quite as much fun. It seems to lack the pulpy edge of its predecessor, perhaps taking itself a bit too seriously at times. The are moments when Ritchie seems to get into the swing of things, and Downey Jr. and Law work as well together as ever, but A Game of Shadowsdoesn’t quite feel like the ideal spectator sport.