For Steven Spielberg, 1993 was his real coming out. Before-hand, he was one of the most important filmmakers in American cinema, one of the few bright spots of the turgid ’80s. But after 1993, he was a god among filmmakers, and a clear genius of intent, if not necessarily execution, for striving to cover all bases in the world of populist directing. He took advantage of the year to stake out a personal trend for himself, releasing one would-be pop cultural touchstone and, perhaps prefacing any concerns that he was too focused on special effects and teenagers and not making “serious” films, a hearty, honest-to-god crippling drama to go with. In fact, he’s taken up this path time and time again (monstrous success also breeds complacency and getting stuck in a rut of one’s own release strategy and production style). Most recently, 2011 brought us the schmaltzy Oscar-bait of War Horse and the animated The Adventures of TinTin. 2005 saw the criminally underrated expressionist nightmare of a disaster movie War of the Worlds and the politically ambiguous morality tale Munich, and in 1997 came stuffy historical drama Amistad and a serious case of sequelitis in Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World. Still, expectations beget expectations, and gifts give way to curses; what he accomplished in 1993, at least in terms of pure commercial and critical success, he never equaled again. Continue reading
I Really Need to Cut it Out With These Waves Puns. This Might be the Last: Jurassic Park
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Update late 2018:
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The idea that a film could “kill” the career of one of America’s most loved stars seems a tad bit antithetical in today’s increasingly safe world, but then we don’t have many daring, singular stars like the ever fearless provocateur in a clown’s body that was Charlie Chaplin. Although the much-loved star carved out a lovable niche as a tragicomic by donning the rumpled clothing of a tramp and the heart of humanity at its simplest and most direct, he was always ready for a fight. His quasi-silent masterpiece Modern Times is one of the least hidden anti-capitalist films ever to be spooled up before an audience, damningly positing the internalization of mechanical soullessness into the human capacity for movement and survival. As if that wasn’t enough, he went on to fancy himself a Hitler-pastiche in The Great Dictator, playing with fire by targeting the holiest of subjects before it was even quiet enough for mourning.
It’s been a couple weeks, so here’s a double-dip of classic cult comic book movies for you, and some prime so-bad-its-good filmmaking on both counts. 
It’s been a couple weeks, so here’s a double-dip of classic cult comic book movies for you, and some prime so-bad-its-good filmmaking on both counts. 
I said these stocking stuffers wouldn’t be themed, and I toyed with calling this one something like “Nasty little black hearts that happen to have Nicole Kidman in them”, but then I realized I should limit my self-serving dumbness to myself sometimes. Just sharing. 
Leos Carax took 15 years to make his next film, but he fashioned one of the decade’s most alert contributions to the history of cinema in the process, fundamentally tackling the idea of fiction entertainment and providing the most damaging, cantankerous commentary on the perils of acting and voyeurism you’re likely to find this side of the 21st century.
Ratatouille was in love with whimsy and fable and Wall-E with romance, minutiae, and slapstick humanism, but Up is at its proudest when it is having the most fun in the world being itself. It all begins with a boy, Russell (Jordan Nagai) asking curmudgeonly old drag of a man, Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner), to help him earn a merit badge, but it most certainly doesn’t stay there for long. Pixar’s trip through surrealism, Warner Bros’ Bunuel-inspired Wackyland, Road to movies, ’30s adventure serials, and filmic flights of fancy more generally, Up sees the then-world’s most recognized film production company end their residency with practically owning filmic invention in the 2000s by paying tribute to all that allowed them to be what they had been so well and so singularly for fifteen years.
If Ratatouille suffers in any meaningful way, it is simply because it does not redefine the possibilities of cinema like its immediate successor Wall-E, a contender for film of its decade and one of the two greatest American animated films since the original Disney Golden Age (yes, the original Golden Age, the one that ended in roughly 1942 and saw Disney fundamentally reorganize the state of film no less than four times). That aside, it is an impeccable work, and although I suspect the if is more definitive, that is damning as enormous, transcendental praise.
The Long Take 