TARR BÉLA'S DAMNED SPOT

It was with his 1982 television adaptation of Macbeth that Tarr Béla suddenly and without warning turned into Tarr Béla. No learning curve, no gradual shift - all at once, the social realism that had marked his early features simply wasn't there, replaced with "fuck you, that's why" approach to formalist storytelling that turns his film less into a version of William Shakespeare's tragedy than an exercise in how cinematic blocking dictates our response...

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FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTERS FROM HELL

There's nothing quite as wholly wretched as a tremendously dumb movie that fails to be such a violation of basic filmmaking competence for its stupidity to blossom into something fun to mock. Thus: I, Frankenstein, a movie that exactly lives up to the pedigree "from the producers" - and co-scenarist Kevin Grevioux, a fact not mentioned in the ads - of Underworld. That is to say, we have here yet another modern urban adaptation of one of the classic...

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JACK AND THE, SHADOW... RECRUITS?

Above all else, what Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit teaches us - if we really needed to be taught it, though we do not - is that Kenneth Branagh the director has an unstoppable infatuation with Kenneth Branagh the actor. Kevin Costner gets introduced coming up behind the camera and in profile. Keira Knightley just meanders into a shot. Chris Pine - the movie's star - is introduced in a wholly run-of-the-mill close-up. But Sir Kenneth Branagh is introduced...

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B-FEST 2014

And now I am recovered enough that I can share with you my tale of B-Fest 2014, the 32nd edition of Northwestern University student group A&O Productions' annual 24-hour celebration of bad (and sometimes, not-so-bad movies), and my own lucky number 13, as I started going as a sophomore at NU in 2002 and have never missed a year since.After two brilliant years, it's not all that surprising that 2014 was a step down, though I'll say this for it:...

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ON SOUTHWEST: THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR THAT YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF

All my thanks to reader StephenM, who scrounged up a link to watch Southwest on Vimeo. In addition to recently anointing it the best feature and best-shot film of 2013, I've been crazy for it ever since the 2011 Chicago International Film Festival, and when I get around to a Best of the 2010s list, I'd be shocked if it's not high in the ranking.It is artsy as all fuck, and totally wonderful. A computer isn't the best way to watch it, probably; but then, the only other time I've ever seen it was on a screener DVD, so it's not like I know what the...

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REVIEW ALL MONSTERS! - ROBOT MONSTER

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, from 1974, was among the first Godzilla pictures I ever saw, so I was never till now in a position to appreciate what a massive shift in the series it represented. In particular, what a jaw-dropping change it meant for director Fukuda Jun, whose four preceding Godzilla projects had all been largely frothy, juvenile affairs with far too much emphasis on James Bond-style thriller mechanics. The optimist in my likes to suppose...

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TARR BÉLA GOES OFF MODEL

With 1982's The Prefab People, the third film in what we might profitably think of as Tarr Béla's "Social Realism Trilogy", we finally reach the defining point where social realism seems to have begun loosing its appeal for the young director, who began with this film to explore the styles and very characteristic rhythms that would define his later aesthetic. It is the first Tarr feature where a modern-day viewer, aware of Damnation and Sátántangó,...

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THE 6th ANNUAL ANTAGONIST AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN FILMMAKING

The 6th Antagonists, that is, but only the fifth by that name. At some point, I shall have to at least come up with a crappy MS Paint graphic of what an Antagonist actually looks like.Apologies for the lateness of this post this year! Sometimes life is not very busy, and sometimes it is, and I've been in the latter of those two states for all of the young 2014. But at least I'm getting it taken care of before the new year has produced any films at all likely to make an impact on next January's incarnation of this list.Update: "The Academy can have...

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