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Showing posts from January, 2009

The Dark Knight Hopes for Gold

This year's oscar season will be one to watch as the two top reviewed films of the year ( WALL-e and The Dark Knight ) both hope to compete for Best Picture this February. For years adaptations of comic books and animated pictures have long been ignored by the Best Picture, but this year is looking to change that with a relatively weak field in Slumdog Millionaire , The Curious Case of   Benjamin Button , The Reader , Frost/Nixon and so on.

Consider This Dude

Absolute genius marketing. Here's hoping the Academy can find it in their hearts to nominate both Downey Jr. - er Kirk Lazarus - and Ledger for Best Supporting Actor. (Courtesy: Dreamworks)

The Year of the Anti-hero (Best Films of 2008)

Whether it is a matter of coincidence, schadenfreude or just the copycat nature of Hollywood, this year featured a great deal of morally grey characters. Films that resonated with the times surrounding us. Disconnect, war, an ever-increasing sense of paranoia have seeped into mainstream films like Frost/Nixon , Cloverfield , The Dark Knight  and the like. Maybe this darker trend should not come as a surprise while indie productions like Paramount Vantage, Warner Independent Pictures and Miramax are all closing their doors. The effect won't be felt immediately, but in three-four years, they will be missed. Though if there is any indication, the studios will pick up the slack as they have this year. A majority of 2008's film were not "good guys". Batman, universally renown for being a hero took an antagonistic turn in Christopher Nolan's genre masterpiece. The other comic-book superhero is predominantly viewed as a playboy with a taste for danger. The wh

Review: Hunger

Steve McQueen's  Hunger resides in the solely physical realm. Feelings don't matter in this prison where Bobby Sands is held, bruises matter. Interactions with guards are entirely non-verbal. Beatings and forced baths take the place of negotiations and conditions. Little background about the prisoners is offered as we enter the film: a guard bathes his bruised knuckles and proceeds to check under his car for a bomb every morning, a newly imprisoned man refuses to wear prison garb and enters his cell with little more than a blanket. Here, he enters his confined surroundings to find context smeared all over the walls. The world's smallest war is being fought in the corridors of this prison. Chaos versus order. Food is made into mush to channel urine into the halls. Resistance is then swept away with the flick of a wrist. The innocence of a babe swaddled in cloth is instantly corrupted by the transfer of messages by any means possible. These men are fighting th