self-awareness | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On How “Scream 4” Took the Franchise’s Self-Awareness to Its Logical Endpoint…

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Darren

We’re launching a new column at The Escapist, called Out of Focus. It will publish every Wednesday, and the plan is to use it to look at some film and television that would maybe fall outside the remit of In the Frame, more marginal titles or objects of cult interest. With the upcoming release of Scream VI, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the criminally underrated Scream 4.

The last film in the franchise to be written by Kevin Williamson or directed by Wes Craven, Scream 4 exists in a weird space. It is separated from the two film either side of it by more than a decade, the only point in time where the franchise wasn’t coming out on a regular basis. However, it’s a movie that feels very firmly ahead of its time. It was released years before Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens and David Gordon Green’s Halloween, but it feels in conversation with a wider culture caught in a feedback loop of Gen X nostalgia.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 1990s, Emma Roberts, franchise, gen x, horror, Kevin Williamson, meta, nineties, nostalgia, out of focus, Scream, self-awareness, slasher, wes craven | Leave a comment »

289. The Princess Bride (#—)

Posted on June 25, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Aoife Barry, The 250 is a weekly 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, Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride.

As a young kid lies sick in bed, wasting time on video games, his grandfather decides to pay a visit. Taking the opportunity to indulge in a timeworn family tradition, the grandfather decides to share a timeless tale of romance and adventure that has been passed down from one generation to another: S.W. Morganstern’s The Princess Bride.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: aoife barry, cary elwes, comedy, fantasy, inconceivable, irony, podcast, reality, rob reiner, Robin Wright, self-awareness, The 250, the princess bride | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On The Complicated Legacy of “Shrek”…

Posted on May 21, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the twentieth anniversary of Shrek, it seems like a reasonable opportunity to take a look back at the film and its sizable pop culture legacy.

Shrek emerged at the turn of the millennium as a response to the kind of animation that had dominated American cinema during the nineties. In contrast to the calculated earnestness and sincerity of the Disney Renaissance, and its many imitators, Shrek‘s irony and cynicism felt like a breathe of fresh air. It was a film that didn’t take itself too seriously, indulging in knowing jokes and winking references. It was a bold counter-cultural statement that nobody expected to succeed. However, it did succeed, and ironically became one of the defining films of the twenty-first century.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: animation, dreamworks, irony, legacy, pop culture, self-awareness, shrek | Leave a 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 »

112. Spice World (-#42)

Posted on January 5, 2019 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with Marianne Cassidy and Grace Duffy, The Bottom 100 is a subset of the weekly The 250 podcast, a trip through some of the worst movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Bob Spiers’ Spice World.

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Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: absurdism, geri halliwell, postmodernism, press, self-awareness, spice girls, spice world | Leave a comment »

My 12 for ’18: Quiet Please in “A Quiet Place”

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Darren

It’s that time of year. I’ll counting down my top twelve films of the year daily on the blog between now and New Year. I’ll also be discussing my top ten on the Scannain podcast. This is number eleven.

Much has been made of A Quiet Place as an old-fashioned horror throwback, and justifiably so.

There is a lot to like about A Quiet Place, especially for audiences who are maybe a little cynical about the modern cinematic landscape. It is an original property. It is not a sequel, reboot, prequel or remake. It is not even based on a book or a comic. It does not exist as part of a shared universe. It is not a story drowned out by the cacophony of end-of-the-world stakes. It is not a story that struggles under the weight on unnecessary exposition. It is a solid, mid-tier, old-fashioned horror film. It is the kind of respectable mainstream genre film that doesn’t really exist anymore.

However, there is something that separates A Quiet Place from the year’s other nostalgic prestige horror offerings like Hereditary. Hereditary was a film that largely succeeded as a nostalgic throwback to the classic horror films of the seventies, tapping into the same fears of familial dissolution as Don’t Look Now or The Exorcist. In contrast, A Quiet Place is a thoroughly modern film. It is a movie that very much reflects the modern world, although not necessarily in terms of theme or story. Indeed, trying to work out the politics of A Quiet Place is bound to be an exercise in frustration.

Instead, A Quiet Place is a modern film in the way that it engages overtly with and makes the characters complicit in the act of watching a horror movie. It is a horror film that is consciously designed in order to heighten and emphasise the manner in which people watch films.

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Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: a quiet place, horror, meta-horror, screaming, self-awareness | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Colette

Posted on November 14, 2018 by Darren

The story at the heart of Colette is familiar, even to those with little knowledge of its inspiration.

Colette is a story about the eponymous French writer, who rose to fame on the back of a series of novels that fictionalised her own life through the lens of a character named Claudine. Keira Knightley stars in the title role, a young woman from the country who finds herself swept into Paris by her older and more established husband. Publishing under the pen name “Willy”, Henry Gauthier-Villars is something of a cad. He is quick to capitalise on his wife’s artistic voice and to claim her successes for his own. Meanwhile, Colette struggles for her creative freedom and to find a way to express herself.

Go, West!

The broad strokes of Colette are fairly routine, the film following the rhythms and structures of the modern historical biography. Reflecting the modern creative and political climate, there is a great deal of emphasis placed on Colette as a feminist narrative, the story of a young woman trying to assert control over her own voice and come to terms with her own identity. It is certainly a timely story, even if Colette follows the standard biographical film playbook beat-for-beat. Very few developments in Colette come as a surprise, and many of the film’s twists and reversals are helpfully signposted from the get-go.

However, Colette works much better than that assessment might suggest. A lot of this is down to a clever and nimble screenplay from Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Colette is aware of all the marks that it needs to hit, and that frees the screenplay up to be a little playful in how it develops its beats and what it does when it hits each mark. Colette is a fascinating hall of mirrors, a movie packed with twisted reflections and symmetries, luxuriating in the blurred boundaries between reality and fiction. Coupled with a pair of charming lead performances, this elevates Colette very well.

A picture-perfect marriage.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Colette, Dominic West, film, history, Keira Knightley, meta, Movie, non-review review, period drama, review, self-awareness | 2 Comments »

Millennium – … Thirteen Years Later (Review)

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Darren

This July, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the sixth season of The X-Files and the third (and final) season of Millennium.

… Thirteen Years Later is infamously silly. That may not be such a bad thing.

There are a lot of details that would seem to weigh against … Thirteen Years Later. It is the show’s first attempt at comedy since Darin Morgan left the staff at the end of the second season; any episode will suffer in comparison to Jose Chung’s “Doomsday Defense” or Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me. It is an episode built around a guest appearance from the rock band KISS to promote the release of their latest album, Psycho Circus. It is also an attempt to do wry self-aware meta-commentary and Hollywood satire, which could easily become indulgent.

KISS was ‘ere…

To be quite frank, … Thirteen Years Later doesn’t really work. It is messy and convoluted. A lot of the gags are obvious, and a lot of its satire of Hollywood feels somewhat stock. The framing device builds to a pretty lame (and entirely predictable) punchline. Some of the best gags in … Thirteen Years Later are shamelessly poached from better second season episodes – the idea of Frank Black in Hawaiian shirt comes from Jose Chung’s “Doomsday Defense” while the idea of Frank Black critiquing serial killer movies was hilarious in Midnight of the Century.

However, in spite of all that, … Thirteen Years Later has an energy and momentum that is sorely missing from much of the season around it. The third season has seen a return to the mood and aesthetic of the first season, which occasionally wallowed in gloom and self-importance. … Thirteen Years Later completely skewers that sense of self-importance. Its best jokes seem to be affectionate jabs at Millennium itself, demonstrating that the show still has a great sense of humour; even if it has gotten quite effective at hiding it.

The camera never lies…

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Filed under: Millennium | Tagged: comedy, Darin Morgan, horror, irony, metafiction, michael perry, michael r. perry, mike perry, millennium, nineties, postmodernism, self-awareness, thirteen years later | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Cabin in the Woods

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Darren

Part of me wonders when it’s appropriate to start ranking the year’s films. I say that, because I’ve just had the pleasure of catching The Cabin in the Woods, which is easily one of the best films of the year so far, and the best horror movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. I know those sound like trite clichés, but Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s exploration of the horror genre just bristles with a raw energy that sweeps up the audience.

It’s a rare horror film that has you laughing when it wants you to laugh, while keeping you anticipating shocks that you know it knows you know are coming. In many ways, it seems like Cabin in the Woods comes from a very raw and personal place from both director and writer, one conflicted over the genre as a whole. From the outset it’s clear that Whedon and Goddard truly love the conventions and the thrills, while loathing the inherent voyeurism and nihilism that is almost inseparable from those aspects. It’s a weird dichotomy, and Cabin in the Woods is a weird film, but weird in that most brilliant of ways.