Archive for January, 2010
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Broken Embraces
Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces is an attempt at film noir; it comes off as film rose. The movie has all the elements that Americans have come to expect from romantic European exports—it’s leisurely, uninhibited, sophisticated, pretty. But Almodóvar tries to jam the appurtenances of old-school American pulp on to the frolicsome Old World obverse, and [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Daybreakers
In Daybreakers, vampires are truly mainstream. They make up the bulk of the population, and have for 10 years. Humans who haven’t assimilated to this change in demographics hang on meat hooks; the vampires mine their veins, and squirt the blood into their morning coffee. (This is a clever touch, though the analogy seems a [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
I slipped into a 6:40 show of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus at 6:50, hoping to have only missed some previews; instead, I apparently missed out on half the plot. Unless the director, Terry Gilliam, has devised a newfangled approach to storytelling that condenses an hour or more of exposition into a five-minute intro, I [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
Avatar
It seems a faux pas to review Avatar from any spiritual age older than 12. If my prepubescent self could be roused for comment, he’d probably say, “Gee whiz, those 3-D blue-cat people are totally rad!” But as a (slightly) older person, who views excessive promotion in the same way that that 12-year-old viewed cooties, [...]