Rewind: Eclipse
Yet an other entry in my occasional series where I demonstrate how out of touch with modern culture I am by reviewing something that was all the rage long ago but which I’m just getting to. This week I show I am catching up with current events by reviewing a movie that still has posters up at Burger King! Yes, it’s the latest installment in the ever popular (and apparently one of the most profitable) series: Twilight. You may recall I reviewed, only a couple of months ago, the last installment in the series: New Moon. Eclipse is definitely a step up from that film. On some levels.
The biggest problem with book adaptations is that there is so much in the book it is amazingly difficult to make it flow. Instead you get very choppy films that don’t feel organic. This was a huge issue with the previous two installments of Twilight. I must commend the director and producers in that they really solved that this time. Eclipse flows so it actually feels like a real movie. This from a director who doesn’t have a whole lot of experience. Primarily music videos and then the 2007 modest hit 30 Days of Night, a horror movie about vampires in Alaska. (Where one must admit it makes a lot of sense to live during the winter) Some of that background worked pretty well here. The horror aspect of vampires had been lacking in the previous films. While I can’t say they established a sense of dread, at least there was a sense of threat to the main character.
About fifteen minutes into Cyrus, the title character makes an aside, words to this effect: “I’m joking. I have a really weird sense of humor.” This could have been the movie’s tag line. While some people will find Cyrus occasionally hilarious and strangely moving, as I did, others may find the movie uncomfortable or odd. But for those who understand the filmmakers’ weird sense of humor, this comedic character study offers a refreshingly authentic and exceptionally well acted slice of life.
So I decided to do the occasional brief “rewind review.” Since I have no life this is basically me seeing movies or listening to music months after the pop culture discussion ended. Perils of having two businesses, opening a new factory outlet, having a new baby pop up in a couple of weeks, and having been in the hospital in December and missing January. Yeah, I’m out of it.
Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the novel by Roald Dahl, directed by Wes Anderson and adapted by Anderson and Noah Baumbach, charms and delights from start to finish. The stop-motion animation has a wonderful (both high-quality and filled-with-wonder) aesthetic that provides the perfect environment for Anderson’s film making, which has always been a bit more full of art and fancy than realism. It’s virtually guaranteed to be Anderson’s most commercially successful film to date, and is arguably his best realized creation since Rushmore.
Quick review since no one has commented on it yet.
The Brothers Bloom, the second film of writer/director Rian Johnson, is a near perfect, immensely entertaining, beautifully written and well-acted movie. It’s no an exaggeration to say that I liked it. A lot. Together with Johnson’s first movie, the pitch-perfect high-school noir Brick, Johnson has begun to build a body of work that establishes him as one of the best working filmmakers.