When it comes to back stories, there’s no work more frequently tapped than The Bible. A rich document with thousands of stories, it’s produced solid cinema, like 1956’s The Ten Commandments, 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ, 1959’s terrific Ben-Hur, the silly fun of Life of Brian from 1979, and even daft reinterpretations like the recent Noah [read my review of Noah]. There’s something inherently epic about the mythic story of the origin of humanity, and the…Read More
Review: The Dark Knight Rises
I really enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises as another epic story from Chris Nolan. It has great action sequences, a tortured main character, interesting back story, a villain with layers we don’t begin to understand until near the end of the film, two love interests, Anne Hathaway in a skin tight leather jumpsuit (did I just say that?) and the cinematic vision of one of the very best directors currently working in Hollywood. Even better,…Read More
Review: Public Enemies
Biopics are an unusual challenge for a filmmaker because the storyline is already set, whether it makes sense and whether we can understand the motivations of the characters or not. As I watched the lush, but violent Public Enemies, I kept thinking that the reason there was no story, no backstory on the characters, and no depth to the film was just this reason: we were being presented with the sequence of events as they…Read More
Review: Terminator Salvation
I’ve written before about the Curse of the Sequel, and when you’re doing a fourth installment of what we modern film people call a “franchise”, it’s doubly difficult to have a film that’s interesting, engaging, and consistent with the mythos of the earlier movies. It can be done: the new Star Trek movie is an example of a great addition to a huge franchise. It can also be messed up, as was the case in…Read More