David Vining's Blog, page 46

Preston Sturges: A Statement of Purpose

So, I have a slightly better reason to take on the works of Preston Sturges than my usual, “Why not?” malarky.

Firstly, my mother recommended him as a topic a year or two ago. I agreed, but I didn’t have room yet to put him on the schedule. And then, a few months back, I was working from home and decided to put something on to play in the background. I chose to watch William Wyler’s The Good Fairy again, but this time with the audio commentary by Simon Abrams. It’s not the best commentary...

William Friedkin: The Definitive Ranking

I think I have a much better handle on who William Friedkin was as an artist. He was a few major things, but I think that the exploration of his filmography has shown that he’s more than what his best known two or three films imply. The French Connection and The Exorcist seem to imply that he was genre-focused and intense, but that hits up against stuff like The Birthday Party or The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Well, who was he? I’d call him an actor’s director who understand cinematic langu...

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

William Friedkin’s final film, completed just a little bit before his death with his health so precarious that insurance required a backup on set for the entire 15-day shoot (who ended up being Guillermo del Toro), The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is an accomplished adaptation of a well-regarded play based on Herman Wouk’s own Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It fits very easily in line with Friedkin’s overall filmography in at least a couple of major ways, and it shows that even in his final day...

Mad Max: A Retrospective

With the release (and box office failure) of George Miller’s latest film and seemingly final entry in his Mad Max franchise, Furiosa, it feels like a perfect opportunity to reflect back on one of the weirdest, enduring action franchises of the past forty-four years, consider its place in the larger culture, and wonder why the culture could embrace the second-to-last entry so fully while leaving the last entry in the dust of the Wasteland.

Born of Miller’s desire to become a filmmaker and his ...

Ishiro Honda: A Retrospective

The system that Toho Studios (and other Japanese studios) operated under until it ended its contract system (ending the Japanese version of the studio system) was an apprenticeship system, so when someone got hired to be a director at the studio, they started as an assistant director to an established talent. Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi both went through this process, and one of Kurosawa’s assistant directors was Ishiro Honda. He worked on Kurosawa’s Stray Dog (for which Kurosawa credite...

Killer Joe

This movie is trash. It’s about stupid, terrible people being awful, plotting murder, doing it badly, inviting the devil into their home, and then paying the consequences when everything goes pear-shaped. It’s also deeply, darkly humorous in a way that connects with my own sense of humor. I mean…this is ugly, vulgar, and explicit stuff, nothing I’d recommend to many people, but I did get a kick out of it. This is also the second time I’ve watched it, and I was just consistently entertained a...

Flight Risk – Trailer

Granted that I haven’t actually seen Mel Gibson’s first directorial effort, The Man Without a Face, aside from potentially that, he hasn’t made less than a banger.

He may be a mad man, but he understands how to put together thrilling spectacles filled with heart, so that he has gotten another film under his belt after Hacksaw Ridge almost a decade ago, I’m there.

Looks fun.

Bug

I am fascinated by the films that receive F Cinemascores. There’s something about them that I want to appreciate. Most of the time, I end up completely understanding the scores, like with Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, but then there are times when I fairly disagree like with Andrew Dominick’s Killing Them Softly. William Friedkin’s Bug, though, leans much more fully towards the former. This is an intentionally ugly film that wears its theatrical roots on its sleeve taking what might have worke...

Here – Trailer

Robert Zemeckis ain’t done yet!

Pinocchio was a disaster, and I’m mostly just happy that Zemeckis isn’t going to end his career with a terrible (though pretty) “live-action” adaptation of a classic Disney animated film.

The concept of Here seems to be one angle in one room over time from pre-history with the focus on the relationship between characters played by Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. I don’t imagine Zemeckis is going to keep things boring visually, so I don’t expect really long...

The Hunted

I don’t think I’ve wanted to rewrite a movie more. I want a time machine to go back to the early 2000s, steal the final shooting script for William Friedkin’s The Hunted, and tear it apart and put it back together because there’s a really interesting movie in here. It’s hidden by a terrible structure, overbearing and kind of incomprehensible allusions to the Bible, and character work that doesn’t really connect, implying to me that the original script actually might have gotten watered down ...