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 every second 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, following the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the theatrical release of Justice League. In particular, the differences between the two cuts and the way in which the theatrical cut was a cynical plot to erase any distinct identity from the film and reduce it to empty superhero “content.”
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of the first three episodes of Invincible on Amazon Prime on Friday, I thought it was worth taking a look at what the new show means.
Invincible makes a big step forward for Amazon. As Warners and Disney continue consolidating their superhero content under their established brands, other studios are going to have to find ways to compete in the superhero content wars. Invincible is a fascinating testcase: a lavish adult-skewing hour-long animated series that aims to deliver superhero spectacle with a character largely unknown to the larger public. If the chow can make an impact, it bodes well for studios without their in-house intellectual property farms.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, it seemed like a good time to talk about the film.
In particular, it’s interesting to look at Zack Snyder’s three films as a set, and to chart the journey through deconstruction from Man of Steel through Batman v. Superman and into the final reconstruction. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is essentially a reconstruction of these iconic characters and a celebration of the potential of these comic book characters.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
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 first episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which offers a promising start to the new show. it does a lot of basic character work, but also establishes a lot of the show’s tone, most notably anchoring it as a Reagan era action throwback. It’s a lot of fun.
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, to mark the fifth anniversary of 10 Cloverfield Lane, I took a look back at one of the most underrated paranoid thrillers of the decade, arriving on the crest of a wave that included similar films like Room, Green Room, The Hateful Eight and even Carol. It’s a timely, even prescient, snapshot of a cultural moment – and a very well-made film.
The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard for the ninth episode of the year. We discuss Coming 2 America and Raya and the Last Dragon.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Because it’s the fifth anniversary of 10 Cloverfield Lane, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the paranoid and claustrophobic thriller. In particular, 10 Cloverfield Lane arrived on the cusp of a wave of similar movies about characters trapped and suffocated in claustrophobic horror: films as diverse as Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room and even Todd Haynes’ Carol.
Looking at these wave of films in hindsight, they suggest something simmering beneath the surface of American consciousness, a nightmare about characters who find themselves in hostile and oppressive environments and forced to survive as best they can. 10 Cloverfield Lane was perhaps the culmination of this cinematic trend, and galvanises many of those themes into a potent allegory for abuse and survival, ending with the revelation that not all of this monstrosity is trapped behind locked doors.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
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, we took a look at the strange wonder that was Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and the fact that it would be impossible to imagine a franchise drawing the shutters down in the same way these days. The Undiscovered Country is not only an explicit rejection of nostalgia, it is also an interrogation of the past, refusing to pull any punches in its look at the original Star Trek. It’s an approach that could never happen today, and popular culture is all the weaker for that.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. There’s been a lot of debate recently about the boundaries between “art” and “content”, which can frequently sound like a debate about “high” and “low” culture, so I thought it was worth taking a look at how porous those boundaries can be.
On paper, Mad Max: Fury Road should be a standard franchise film. It’s the fourth film in the Mad Max franchise, serving as a vague sequel or even reboot to one of Australia’s most successful movie franchises. It cost a lot of money. It features a lot of special effects. It has very little dialogue. However, in spire of that, it is arguably as pure an expression of cinema as an artform as has every existed, and demonstrates how elastic and how illusory arguments about “high” and “low” culture truly are.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard and KC Nwosu for the seventh episode of the year. We talk about the various permutations of Mortal Kombat and the Netflix movie Space Sweepers.
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