David Vining's Blog, page 143

Batman (1989)

I used to know the story behind the making of this film, but it’s been so long that I had to do a quick survey of the Internet to come up with the confirmation to my own theory as I watched Tim Burton’s take on the Dark Knight, that it is the product of about 1,000 different drafts smooshed together. I cannot remember when I didn’t have a muted reaction to this film, feeling that it might look good but I just cared so little about what actually happens. Now, with a bit more knowledge about h...

The World Moves On

Most notable for being the very first movie passed by the Hays Office at the birth of the Motion Picture Production Code, receiving Certificate #1 from the board, John Ford’s The World Moves On is worthwhile for more than just that historical footnote. A family saga akin to Anthony Mann’s The Furies, it tells the story of a large cotton conglomeration with presence in the US, England, France, and Germany begun in the 1820s as it enters the 1910s and The Great War rears its ugly head. Loyalti...

The Lost Patrol

Once again, John Ford makes a movie about World War I that feels one step removed from actual combat. Adapted from the novel Patrol by Philip MacDonald, it’s a tightly focused story of a small group of men largely in a single location. I actually thought that it had originated as a play. The tight focus allows for a very strong attention to character, never making the 70-minute runtime feel overstuffed or rushed. It’s comfortable in construction, which is an interesting contrast to the uncom...

Doctor Bull

Recalling the middle section of Ford’s earlier Arrowsmith, Doctor Bull is the story of a small town doctor and his life amidst the sicknesses, hypochondriacs, and general hustle and bustle of the small community. It’s a light affair that mostly relies on the central performance by Will Rogers for its entertainment value with a late stage sense of plot that doesn’t engage as much as it probably should.

The titular Doctor (Rogers) never seems to get a moment to himself. Subject to gossip by...

Pilgrimage

This is one of several movies John Ford made about things around World War I. He hasn’t made one about the war directly. Any look at battle has been short and quick with the focus of the films on events around the fighting itself. That’s no different here with Pilgrimage, his 1933 film, but I can’t help but comparing the similar output from Howard Hawks who made films about men in the thick of it, embracing aesthetics of different aspects of the war along with the experiences of those who fo...

Flesh

Only really remembered these days because the Coen Brothers paid homage to it as the title of the screenplay being written by the title character in Barton Fink, Flesh is another nearly forgotten Ford film in his very busy 30s period that definitely doesn’t deserve to be overlooked. It’s a combination of drama and comedy that rather deftly integrated together with a winning central performance from Wallace Beery.

Beery plays Polakai, a German wrestler who meets the young American woman La...

The RoboCop Franchise: The Definitive Ranking

Very typical of franchises that started in the 80s, RoboCop began with a violent, gory, smart, witty, and exciting opening entry and quickly descended into nonsense aimed for children. Studio executives drove the franchise into the ground as fast as possible while chasing merchandizing potential from a demo that had no disposable income.

It was then rebooted in the 2010s because Hollywood needed a recognizable property to fill a release date, and they gave the reins to a promising indie d...

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RoboCop (2014)

Jose Padilha took up the mantle of the RoboCop franchise and, fighting studio mandates all the way, came up with what is essentially a drama with action beats. The satirical elements that helped make the original fun are replicated in some diluted form, but they seem to miss the mark. The drama elements are a mixed bag. But, hey, the action beats are actually pretty neat, so it’s got that going for it. In terms of Batman Begins style reboots, there were worse ways to go with this, but the ra...

RoboCop 3

The third entry in the RoboCop franchise is a great example of what was going wrong with a lot of franchises in the 90s. Toned down to appeal more to kids while only retaining the barest amount of talent from the original films no matter how unimportant to the actual story, Fred Dekker’s RoboCop 3 is the Saturday morning cartoon version of a hard R-rated satirical action movie. Where the second movie went wrong by trying to be too much and satisfying nothing altogether, the third firmly sets...