David Vining's Blog, page 197

Dr. No

I think this is a movie that people grade on a curve. In the alternate universe where we don’t have several dozen James Bond movies and the entire franchise ended at Dr. No, the movie would be seen as a mystery with little mystery centered around a rather dull and thin antagonist. As the first real James Bond movie, though, it’s heralded as the originator of most of the cinematic mythos including the theme song, “Bond, James Bond,” “shaken, no stirred,” Bond girls, Sean Connery as Bond,...

Knives Out

This reminds me a lot of The Prestige. Not so much in storytelling (though there are some similarities), but in terms of how a director made a very financially successful film and followed it up with something much smaller as a way to recharge his batteries. It’s clever, witty, and fun, but it’s more of a way for Rian Johnson to stretch his creative legs than anything else. Still, it’s a good time at the movies.

A lot got made of the film’s early reveal of the central death, and it does...

Toy Story 4

There is no reason that a movie about toys should be this emotional affecting, but there’s no denying it. Woody’s journey in this movie feels as real to me as any in recent memory. It takes the fantastical situation of living toys and applies a recognizable metaphor that relates to the human experience, all done with possibly the most realistic visuals of any animated movie and in a lively idiom that can appeal to children at the same time. It’s a delicate balancing act that the movie pulls...

A thought on The Rise of Skywalker’s new Force ability

So, randomly looking around the Interwebs, I saw complaints from people that the new Force Heal ability demonstrated in The Rise of Skywalker broke the entirety of the franchise up to that point. “Force heal me, Obi-wan,” Qui-gon saws to his padawan. “I’ll just Force Heal you, dad,” Luke says to Vader.

However, I would disagree, though it takes a bit of supposition and the connecting of some dots that the movies themselves don’t do.

The Jedi of the prequels always felt small to me. I think...

Saving Private Ryan

Steven Spielberg is the most effortlessly inventive technical director alive. He’s placed shots in this film that move effortlessly from one subject to another, all the while each moment provides a new piece to the story. His inventiveness isn’t showy or extraneous, but subtle and key to moving the story forward. In Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg uses his extreme technical proficiency to tell a very engaging story about the nature of war.

The opening sequence of D-Day is the obvious standout...

First Man

First Man’s director, Damien Chazelle, thought that Neil Armstrong’s story would fit in well into the thriller genre, and I don’t think he was wrong at all. But, there’s something else that Chazelle brings to the film that heightens the experience in an unexpected way. The tangible sense of absolute terror at the vastness of space infuses the action with such an enhanced sense of extreme and existential fear that takes the sensation onto another sensory level.

It’s the story of a man so...

The Wizard of Oz

This is an interesting combination of escapism and a message of staying home that it feels like it could only be made during the Depression. Yes, there are wondrous things out there, but really, you need to stay home and work the farm and every moment you’re away you should be yearning to return. It’s a delightful journey we follow Dorothy on, but that message is so unlike anything in pop culture since.

It really does hinge on two conflicting desires common in the human heart: escape and...

Marriage Story

Even before Noah Baumbach showed us the article with Nicole and Charlie titled “Scenes from a Marriage”, the movie screamed of influences to Bergman to me. The main characters are a theater director and an actress (like in After the Rehearsal). There are shots that evoke Persona. And the basic story feels like stuff that happens between episode 3 and 4 of the Swedish television series. The actual divorce in Bergman’s film is largely glossed over, skipping from the admission of infidelity to...

Schindler’s List

This movie is built on contrasts, and it includes one of the most devastating single cuts in movies. It’s a dual narrative that almost feels separated for a while before the two become completely intertwined in the final hour. It’s impeccably made, acted, scored, and assembled. It is one of, if not the, greatest single film by Steven Spielberg, and it’s the best example of an “important” film.

The first sustained sequence to the film is our introduction to the main character of Oskar...

Contagion

Sometimes I think people just simply watch movies wrong. Looking through some of the negative reviews of Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion was one of those moments. It’s a procedural movie that is meant to capture the wide-ranging reality of a massive disease outbreak in the modern era, not a three act drama with character arcs. It’s simply a different type of movie than a lot of people are used to, so they don’t know how to process it. Anyway…

One of the many things I love about this film is...