Pan’s Labyrinth: a Fascist Fairytale
I’m fairly certain that Guillermo del Toro was trying to piss me off with his beautifully filmed, marvelously acted, Academy Award nominated masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth. How else could you explain his use of nearly every fairytale device in what is so disturbingly not a fantasy film?
Set in World War II Spain, the film depicts the conflict between government soldiers and rebels, …read more
Posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 by Jeff | 6 Comments »
Terror and Triumph Beget Children of Men
Children of Men is a brutal vision of a near-future nightmare world rocked by terrorism and fascism, slowly ripping itself to pieces. The reason for the films creeping apocalypse is two decades of global infertility. Faced with the grim prospect of being the last of humanity, most nations are lawless wastelands, with the UK having kept some vestiges of civilization thought the use of draconian curtailments of civil liberties, and the forced expulsion of all non-citizens. …read more
Posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 by Jeff | No Comments »
The Torturous Turns of The Prestige
The Prestige is a hard movie to love. It’s an unforgiving story, filled with all of the complexity and tragedy we hope to leave behind when we escape to the theater. Christopher Nolan, however, seems to love nothing more than to make us squirm, and he’s done a frighteningly beautiful job of it by bringing Christopher Priest’s haunting novel to the screen.
The film is set Victorian England, and is …read more
Posted on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 by Jeff | 1 Comment »
A Scanner Darkly’s Timeless Dystopia
You’ve certainly seen the quirky, mesmerizing animation style. You probably know that Philip K. Dick’s novels were the inspiration for the movies Blade Runner and Total Recall. You may even know that A Scanner Darkly’s pharmacological freefall is fueled in large part by the author’s own experiences. But does anyone know what this film is actually about?
Is it a cautionary tale of the slow, painful …read more
Posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 by Jeff | No Comments »
