The notably decent production values and score grab the interest early on, but the enthusiasm soon wanes thanks to a script unfortunately subject to Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s hokey sensibilities. The child actors were great, outperforming most of the adults (even Jeremy Davies seems unusually out of sorts). I struggled to come to terms with the way the supernatural elements were used within the premise, essentially a cheap cop-out to aid the plot in the absence of any other alternatives, and the tonal undulations prove too severe for Derrickson to navigate fairly.
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Top Gun: Maverick 2022
Joseph Kosinski is a director I appreciate, mostly for his fantastic work on the undervalued Tom Cruise-starring sci-fi flick Oblivion, and his working relationship with Cruise, plus his demonstrated proficiency with nostalgia-bait (see: Tron Legacy), made him a safe bet to helm this belated sequel to Top Gun. Given its star’s predilection for daredevilry, however, Maverick ironically plays it far too safe, serving up an overabundance of creamed corn, straight out the can. This detracts from the visceral thrill to…
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The Batman 2022
Having gone full Pattinstan following a string of performances in great films in the second half of the last decade, I recall bemoaning his casting as the Bat amongst friends upon its announcement. Some were generous in their appraisal of the move, suggesting there was nothing wrong with him securing the bag, whilst I decried the move as the loss of yet another actor flourishing in indie film, and the prime years of their career, to the whims of a…
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Scratch 2001
Doug Pray’s Scratch is one of the most personally influential pieces of media I’ve ever consumed. When I first saw this near 20 years ago, it immediately sparked an obsession with the art of turntablism, and precipitated the hasty purchase of a set of decks and stacks of vinyl records. From there I embarked on a modest musical journey, leading to a minor side-career as a DJ, playing a handful of regular residencies over a good 10 years or so…
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Avengers: Endgame 2019
If Infinity War was, as @kernetcetera so eloquently described, ‘television’, then Endgame is the TV finale, the send-off show, the goodbye episode that wraps it all up with a nice little bow and gives the fans an opportunity to pay their respects to characters that had been a part of their lives for so many seasons. On that note, it’s certainly not the type of film that was made for someone like me, and I was a fool for thinking…
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The House That Jack Built 2018
Murder as art. Art as murder. Engineering. Architecture. Heaven and hell. The tiger. The lamb. The dark light. The noble rot.
There will be lots of words about this to come.
