Movies

Boilerplate Biopic

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There’s nothing wrong with Ray that a little less hype couldn’t fix. As biopics go, it’s pretty good. Jamie Foxx is convincing as the iconic Ray Charles. Writer James L. White and writer/director Taylor Hackford employ a clumsily expository flashback structure that actually pays off beautifully at the end with a startling and unexpected moment of transcendence and vision. Two and a half hours clip by briskly. And there’s plenty of Charles’ music.

Tagged: Based on Real Events, Biopics, Dramas, Jamie Foxx, Ray, Ray Charles, Reviews, Taylor Hackford
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Movies

Reincarnation’s Provocative Practicalities

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Birth is the perfect antidote for anybody who thinks reincarnation is a romantic notion, allowing for a reunion with the spirit of a loved one who has died. By mining the practicalities of the situation, the movie becomes a rare work that humanizes and seeks to understand the effects of reincarnation instead of merely employing it for cheap horror or cheesy romance.

Tagged: Birth, Death, Dramas, Jonathan Glazer, Reincarnation, Reviews, Spirituality
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Movies

The Ethics of Desperation

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A key reason Dirty Pretty Things works so well is that the audience can never be sure in what direction it will go. It might be a sober exploration of issues related to immigration, or it might be a romance, or it might be a humanistic thriller, or it might be a Lynchian mystery, or … . It’s all those things, actually, and at least pretty good at all of them. The movie is nimble, and just when you think you’ve nailed it, it swerves in another direction.

Tagged: Dirty Pretty Things, Reviews, Stephen Frears
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Movies

Village Idiocy

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Bashing The Village, of course, is easy. But out of M. Night Shyamalan’s plodding, over-deliberate bore — neither intellectually stimulating nor marginally entertaining — could have been salvaged a good, serious, potentially wrenching exploration of the concept of the social contract.

Tagged: M. Night Shyamalan, Reviews, The Village
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Books

Pity the Rich Genius

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I’m not quite sure how one quantifies it, but Crain’s Chicago Business has decided that writers given half-million-dollar MacArthur “genius” grants become fat, slovenly pigs. Actually, the publication has found a correlation between getting one of these awards and a significant decline in the quality and quantity of an author’s output. There’s even a handy, authoritative chart! Is there a cause-and-effect relationship here, or is the MacArthur Foundation simply an excellent judge of when writers are past their primes? (Via Salon.)

Tagged: MacArthur Fellows Program, MacArthur Fellowship, MacArthur Foundation, MacArthur Genius Grants
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Movies

The Magic’s in the Details

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Film Rotation pointed me toward an article that does an excellent job of explaining and demonstrating how motion-capture technology itself (as used in computer-animated movies) is only the means to an end, not the end itself. In the case of The Polar Express, the author argues (and shows), the animators botched the detail work, resulting in bizarre-looking, seemingly possessed characters. By way of comparison, he offers Gollum and the decidedly unrealistic CGI of The Incredibles.

Tagged: CGI, Computer Generated Imagery, Motion Capture, Technology, The Incredibles, The Lord of the Rings, The Polar Express
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