My Own Little World

Blade Runner 2049 is a really, really, really beautiful film. I don’t think I have been more visually or sonically treated in the past few years of watching movies. Between Roger Deakins’s Oscar-winning cinematography that is transportive and elegant, Hans Zimmer’s electronically graceful score, the sound direction, production design, and perfect (and I do mean perfect) visual effects, there is so much to take in from each shot that I almost could not comprehend everything that was happening. And that is Blade Runner 2049 ’s undoing. As perfect as Denis Villeneuve’s technical direction of the film is, its structure and narrative are kind of a mess. I loved Ridley Scott’s original film that discussed big-picture questions of humanity and reality while also forcing me to use my brain to connect the pieces of his visual storytelling amid the lack of plain and simple exposition – something that I was annoyed with at first but came to enjoy the more I reflected upon it. Wha...

Warning: I will minorly spoil this movie in this post.  I have this thing with romance movies, that thing being that most of them are really, really not good. There is a definite formula to the genre that I think is becoming so overused that any film eschewing it for something different (*cough* Silver Linings Playbook *cough*) becomes one of the best of the genre in my mind. I kind of wish this wasn't the case, especially now that I am in a very committed relationship with someone who happens to love these movies. However, a couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend somehow got me to actually sit down and watch The Notebook  with her, and I realized something about this formula: there's a reason it's there, and I'd like to bet that that reason is The Notebook . It was successful among audiences, bringing in over five times its budget at the box office, as well as garnering a bit of a cult following in the years since its release. People love the unabashed sentimentality...

In closing the door on 2016, I realize that there are a lot of films that I have seen that unfortunately I was unable to review for one reason or another. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't want you guys to know what I think of most of these films, so just like the last couple of years I will be doing a few posts over the next month or so wrapping up all of the films I got a chance to see from this past year. This time, I've got a Tim Burton fantasy book adaptation, Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood, and a surprisingly good duo of Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children  - Not a waste of time.  This was a surprisingly entertaining fantasy film. Miss Peregrine's definitely has its own share of writing and editing problems, but the solid visual effects and generally good performances (especially from the child actors) mask them pretty well. The pacing is a little variable and drags a bit in the second act; however, the clim...

There are times when I sit down to watch a movie, expecting the world, and I get something that underwhelms me. I really don't like that feeling of being disappointed by films I really look forward to. On the other hand, there are times where I'll sit down with no specific expectations besides a film being good and get absolutely blown away. La La Land  is definitely one of the latter. I didn't have any idea what to expect from this movie. I loved director Damien Chazelle's last film Whiplash  because of its editing and incredibly tight pace, and I have really enjoyed what I have seen from Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone recently; however, I still had no idea what I was getting into with this film, aside from the fact that it would be good. From the opening frames, my jaw dropped. La La Land  is a film from a bygone era and harkens back to the musicals from the 1950s such as Singin' in the Rain . This is seen so easily through the direction of the musical number...