Rebel Moon

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 27 💬 0


If you saw 300 or the Snyder's cut of Justice League you know what to expect from Zachary Edward Snyder. A lot of cool ass slow-mo shots. A lot of detailed frames with a lot of particles and stuff. A lot of mood shots that are there probably only for beauty. And a lot of violent violence. Rebel Moon is not an exception. It is very much a Zack Snyder movie.

May December

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 47 💬 0


Natalie Portman is an interesting figure in the world of cinema. And the movie May December is a meta-analysis of Natalie's psychological journey through Hollywood. It is not a surprise that her first movie Leon: The Professional caused some levels of controversy. It was mainly an action film, so there was not that much controversy. But the dramatic elements of the film were questioned a lot by American audiences. Even Natalie Portman herself, being half-American described Leon as "cringe". And it seems like the growing obsession with all kind of sexual misconducts in Hollywood together with growing feelings of cringe from Leon made her into needing a movie like May December to evaluate everything and understand the phenomenon better.

Breaking The Waves

  Blender Dumbass
👁 43 💬 0


Lars Von Trier is an interesting filmmaker. He directs mostly very depressing movies that are very hard to watch. Breaking The Waves is an interesting case study in his filmography because on some weird level this is one of the rare examples of a Lars Von Trier film with a happy ending. Even though you could perhaps argue that the ending is nowhere near happy at all.

The Spark

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 73 💬 0


The Spark is great in all the things that graphical artists value. It looks jaw-dropping. But it fails for me in the story-telling aspect of it. What is the story of The Spark? A character falls down a hole and finds there a clue. And because of how utterly bored he is, he decides to follow that clue until reaching a place where he finds grass. A thing that he was programmed to find. Yes, it is not as straight forward as him just walking there by himself and finding the grass. There are obstacles along the way, but non of them make any impact.

Chocolate

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 40 💬 0


Asian cinema is different from American cinema. When in America filmmakers are often armed with enormous budgets, Asian cinema is trying to survive with what it has while still delivering the same, if not more, entertainment value. It's not that hard when dealing with dramas. There most of the time the story is about a few people in few locations, talking and crying with one another. Which is not expensive. But it's an entirely different challenge when you are trying to compete within the action-film market.

Something Evil

  Blender Dumbass
👁 66 💬 0


Conceptually the film is very much like Stanley Kubrick's "The Shinning". It deals with a parent going slowly insane and becoming a threat to the children. Both movies suggest a possibility of a supernatural explanation of the insanity. But the movies are made in such a smart way where there is enough doubt in those supernatural occurrences that you can read it as psychological deterioration only. Which is a very interesting challenge to a filmmaker. And young Spielberg pulled it off.

6 Underground

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 29 💬 0


In my review of Babylon I claimed that it was 1941 of Damien Chazelle. But there is one filmmaker that makes 1941s all the time. And his name is Michael Bay.

The Killer

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 36 💬 0


I miss the times when you could see a David Fincher movie in the cinema. The last time he made a true cinema picture was almost 10 years ago in 2014. Since then he fully embraced the DRM filled streaming dis-service models. And his latest film The Killer is a straight to Netflix production. And it seems like he himself feels a bit off about it. Because if we take the character as a proxy for Fincher himself. This character is complex in how much he tries to justify himself being a terrible person.

Babylon

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 47 💬 0


I would say that Babylon, the 2022 film directed by Damien Chazelle is Damien Chazelle's 1941. I wrote an article describing how 1941 is the ultimate Steven Spielberg movie and how there is a certain type of over the top insanity you can expect from a good filmmaker going completely unhinged. 1941 wasn't received well. People in the cinema were reportedly closing their ears from the shier amount of loud explosions that happened in the movie. Babylon is the lowest rated movie from Damien Chazelle. But it doesn't mean that the movie is dull, or badly made. Both 1941 and Babylon are explosive insanity-fests showcasing the ability of a good director to maintain focus in an absolute chaos. Both films are incredibly well directed. There are complex shots and interesting cuts all through out. But perhaps they had injected so much energy into the movies that the movies overdosed the audience. And therefor received worse reviews.

RRR

  Blender Dumbass
👁 58 💬 0


A movie titled simply "RRR" is perhaps the greatest achievement in the entire Indian cinema landscape. You are probably familiar with the term "Bollywood". There is a misunderstanding in the world that Bollywood simply means Indian cinema. It's not necessarily true. Bollywood is Indian cinema from the center of India. And Bollywood movies all shot in the Hindi language. India has a dozen or so states and a dozen or so languages. Each state and even each little region of those states have different languages and dialects. RRR was made in the state called Andra Pradesh ( Telugu: ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్ ) where people speak Telugu ( Telugu: తెలుగు ). And the movie is a part of Tollywood, not Bollywood. Though quite frankly, even that is not true, since the director of the film Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli ( Telugu: కోడూరి శ్రీశైల శ్రీ రాజమౌళి ) known as simply S. S. Rajamouli ( Telugu: ఎస్. ఎస్. రాజమౌళి ) treated this film as an all Indian movie, using actors from different states of India, and dubbing the film into multiple Indian languages. Making the film Indian in general, not simply Tollywood.

Minority Report

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 37 💬 0


I reviewed a lot of films on this website and in almost every review I mention the name of Steven Spielberg. It's not because every movie I review is made by Spielberg. But it seem like every director can be viewed on a scale of Spielbergness. And the higher you go on that scale the better. At the top there is Steven Spielberg himself.

My Girl

  Blender Dumbass
👁 40 💬 0


Between the 1970s to the 1990s there was a very interesting period in Hollywood. Directors like Steven Spielberg came from relative nobodies to super-stars. Which inspired a lot of directors to take upon the formula of sentimental adventure and try doing something else with it. My Girl looks like a movie clearly inspired by Spielberg, but not quite Spielbergian, in a sense that it doesn't deal with extraordinary circumstances, but rather deals with a family and friendship dynamics.

An American Pickle

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 38 💬 0


Seth Rogen is an interesting filmmaker. Sometimes I feel like he is a manifestation of me when I will be older. But to be honest it's just wishful thinking. Wait for my review on The Fablemans to understand why. Seth Rogen is Jewish. He looks kind of big. Sometimes directs movies. He has Ukrainian ancestry. And he is a fighter for Freedom. Basically me. No... Wishful thinking. I don't think I will get anywhere near as popular. Basically Spielberg. Yeah that's better.

Vampire's Kiss

  Blender Dumbass
👁 60 💬 0


Francis Ford Coppola, a director behind things like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now did not direct Vampire's Kiss. It was directed by Robert Bierman. A director who did mostly work for TV. And who's directing style is not necessarily bad. I don't think he is bad. The movies do not feel terribly directed. It's just it seems that as a director he is not necessarily exciting.

Kimi

  Blender Dumbass
👁 71 💬 0


In some way the movie actually is very similar in concept to Beau Is Afraid. The main character has anxieties about leaving home. And in both films the main character has to go outside on the journey. And in both films the worst type of things happen to them. But while Beau Is Afraid is more about bad situations just being unlucky. In this movie, it is as if the film was written by Richard Stallman and it's a compilation of fears somebody in the Free Software community might feel.

Bones And All

  ^Unread  

  Blender Dumbass
👁 35 💬 2


It is very hard to describe the style of Luca Guadagnino, the director of Bones And All. His films are very good. But it seems like he is not interested in plot, which is weird, considering that the movies are good. He is famous for his erotic dramas, films centered around a sexual tension between people, like his perhaps most acclaimed movie Call Me By Your Name, in which all the substance comes from very subtle things. A character looks a certain way on another character. Or perhaps holds onto another character's hand for way too long. And you have to piece together all these little clues to even start feeling some kind of presence of a plot. Because if you don't pay attention it all looks like people just casually hanging out. And then suddenly a payoff happens, which would make sense only if you paid attention to the little clues.