Odds & Ends
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Iron Man 2: Early Review
I saw Iron Man the other day. I enjoyed it, but don't have enough to say about it to warrant a full review. Suffice to say it reminded me a lot of the first Spider-man film; well-written, with good characters and performances and a healthy sense of conviction in the exercise by all involved, but at the same time lacking the really big show-stopping scenes that would have made it more memorable (the climax is really just two guys in metal suits punching each other.) It made me think of these comments by Paul Rameker in an article I've linked to before, over at David Bordwell's page:
I would second all that and also add that these days, the sequel will get more money spent on it than the original; this and the more straightforward stories allowed once the "origin" story is out of the way means the second film in a series can usually be more action-focused. (Yes, this is a good thing.) The old idea that sequels gradually fade away in terms of quality should be considered completely dead, at least as far as first sequels go; third films in series remain much dodgier propositions. Another example: the Bourne series, which - whatever you think of it's hyperkinetic style - really only emerged as the default reference points for action filmmaking when the sequels appeared. Thus I'm excited about Iron Man 2 (Iron Men?), assuming the first film does well enough to warrant a sequel, and that they can keep Robert Downey Jr interested and out of jail. I fully expect to better than Iron Man, just as I'm looking forward to The Dark Knight (despite not being amongst those who consider Batman Begins a gold standard for comic book blockbusters) and Quantum of Solace (which is very much a first sequel in the reborn Bond series that began with Casino Royale). Speaking of which, here's the new trailer for The Dark Knight, featuring lots of the late Heath Ledger. His performance looks incredible, and surely show-offy enough to get a posthumous supporting actor Oscar. Labels: batman, bordwell, commentary, sequels, snobbery, superheroes, trailers Posted by Stephen Rowley @ 7.5.08 - 2 comments  
Friday, March 14, 2008
Round-Up of the Frivolous Things
The site has had, until yesterday, another quiet few weeks, what with one thing another. Whenever I go through one of these periods where I don't have time to get something substantial up (or where, as was the was the case over the last week or so, I'm labouring over something that starts as a short post and ends as a great big one) the temptation is always to keep the page ticking over by posting the various silly things and rumours on this page. But then I get self-conscious about how lightweight some of this stuff is. After I've just published a "proper" article or post, though, I've got no such qualms. So on the coat-tails of my piece on Film Theory, it's time to catch up on the frivolous stuff from the internet. Bees! Bees! Millions of Bees! This one came from Jaime J. Weinman's Something Old, Nothing New, where Weinman was taking about Irwin Allen's The Swarm. A very dumb clip, but it gets me every time: as a commenter over at Weinman's blog put it, the way the guys says "Millions of bees!" makes it sound like he's selling them, not getting killed by them. Bosko Says What? Everyone loves it when a cartoon character swears. Via Cartoon Brew. Clampett Update There's been some good stuff on the internet about Bob Clampett over the last few eeeks: this post by Kristin Thompson looks at some freeze frames from his work and Michael Barrier talks about the cult of Clampett. The latter follows a debate that had played out following Barrier's earlier comments about the merits of Clampett's Buckaroo Bugs; you can follow that earlier debate through links from the more recent piece. If you're not that familiar with Clampett, I would humbly point you towards my earlier essay on him, which was intended as introduction for the uninitiated.  Wall-E.T. The main trailer for Pixar's Wall-E is out. YouTube below, but the much nicer HD version is here. People are really flipping out over this movie. I don't know - I don't find the trailer as completely convincing as others do, and Pixar have lost that aura of invincibility. But here's hoping. Speed Racer Trailer Now here's one that redefines the term "garish." YouTube below but this one you really need to see in HD (here). Who knows what to make of this. It kind of looks hideous and badly shot, but then I've commented just recently on what good action directors the Wachowskis are. Harry Potter and the Multiple Films And apparently Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is to be two movies. Given the really good bits of the last book are in the second half (see here for my comments when the book came out) this strikes me as unwise. Perhaps they can give the first half of the book, where the kinds are wandering the country, an epic Lord of the Rings-ish scope. But I think they risk getting a real dud out of this. Labels: animation, bordwell, clampett, harry potter, humour, pixar, rumours, trailers Posted by Stephen Rowley @ 14.3.08 - 0 comments
Monday, May 28, 2007
An Article So Good You'll Want a Sequel
One of my happy discoveries of the last few months has been that David Bordwell has his own website (with longtime writing partner Kristin Thompson); Bordwell is one of the best film academics around, and his writing is always stimulating. (I also have his latest book The Way Hollywood Tells It on my shelf waiting to be read - only the fact that it arrived with Michael Barriers' The Animated Man and J.W. Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars has kept me from it). One thing I enjoy about his writing is that he avoids the same complacent narratives you hear all the time. He knows his film history and film art better than anybody - he's co-author of Film Art and Film History: An Introduction, the books from which just about everybody else learnt what they know - and he doesn't just settle for the simple familiar story we always hear. So, for example he and some similarly minded colleagues have responded in this article here to the common refrain that sequels are the ultimate creative cop-out, that Hollywood just wants to sell us the same idea over and over again, blah blah blah. (Bordwell is too polite to put it quite this way, but for my own money the way the film press tediously recycles this basic premise every American summer is as good an example of autopilot as the summer sequel season itself). To give you just a sample, here's Paul Ramaekar quoted in the above linked piece: I have a theory. In the contemporary comic-book blockbuster, the sequels will always be better than the first entries. Spider-Man 2 is better than Spider-Man, X-Men 2 is better than X-Men, and I will bet that The Dark Knight will be better than Batman Begins, just as Batman Returns was better than Batman. The pattern seems to me to be that the first film in the series is relatively impersonal - the franchise must be established as a franchise, meaning that few boats will be rocked, and the director must prove that they can handle both a film on that scale, and can be trusted with the property with all the investment it represents. I just wish a few more of the film academia or general press could bring themselves to move past their preconceived notions of creative bankruptcy into this kind of engagement with what Hollywood actually does. Labels: bordwell, commentary, sequels Posted by Stephen Rowley @ 28.5.07 - 0 comments
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This page is for assorted musings and editorialising that don't fit elsewhere on Cinephobia. Stills Avery, Jones, Clampett The Other Jones Iron Man 2: Early Review Location, Location, Location The Casting of Tintin Round-Up of the Frivolous Things Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Quicktime Tra... Franchising December 2003 May 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 Want to contact me? 
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