Of all of Stanley Kubrick’s eclectic films, none endure more in the minds of conspiracy lovers than The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. Continue reading “The Shining (1980): Another Bonkers Interpretation”
Somewhere between the speed boats, standard-issue supercars, and deep cover meet-ups, Miami Vice demands an increasing threshold of incredulity. By no means is this a flaw except while on the one hand you have to contest with suspension of disbelief to a point, you also end up struggling to keep up. Lost in the curt retorts and snappish dialog—mostly Sonny’s murmurs—is half the spoken lines in Mann’s script, notorious as ever for dropping pronouns and use of jargon-heavy dialog. Couple that with a possibly botched boom job and inaudible lines and it’s a jumble too difficult to follow without subtitles. And that’s the way most cinema was intended to be consumed. Vice fails there. And yet somewhere in the mess is film to be salvaged. So it either demanded boundless reserves of toleration or an outright reinterpretation of the shifting stakes throughout its duration. I prefer the latter, although the two are not mutually exclusive. Continue reading “Miami Vice (2005)”
For better or worse, cinema’s enfant terrible of yore and current hack artist Gaspar Noe is, to many, above any introduction except yours truly will dispense one anyway, so I promise to keep it short. Continue reading “The Cinema of Kubrick in Irreversible?”
Starring Elijah Wood
Fitting quite a few notable criteria the American Psychiatric Association would deem typical in many a serial killer — male, loner, targets females, same race — Maniac the reboot does well by avoiding trappings of the genre. Effectively, this contains it firmly within the slasher sub-genre, a considerable distance outside of the pure serial killer. This makes for easy pigeonholing. By no means was any statement above an indictment of an original I have not seen. Continue reading “Maniac (2012) – a POV Look”
In the public bathroom where I work are four mirrors, with washing sinks below three. The nearest mirror to the door hangs over what remains of the removed sink; the grouting and makeshift piping. Standing in front of that mirror is more convenient. The reflection off it just seems more spacious because it extends further below the other three, with the basins beneath. Yesterday I went to understand why. They were all identical in size. The unobstructed path to that one mirror gives a wider angle, creating the perception that it is bigger. Continue reading “Metaphors & Symbols in Oculus”
