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Moss Island Movie Minutes
Robert Zemeckis wisely recognizes that the heist is not the point of the story. The walk itself is beautiful. The creative team pays full homage to that act, and they’ll make you believe it too.
Ant Man was produced by Marvel cum Disney – it’s a surprisingly well-crafted piece of entertainment junk food that doesn’t quite evaporate afterward; it sits uneasy in the psychic gut, and you wonder why you kept going long after you knew you should quit.
We’ve been conditioned by teen sex comedies and sports films to expect certain milestones and story beats – Linklater suggests some of those with a wink, before changing tack. The result is a genial, mostly happy film – it reminded me of George Lucas’ American Graffiti…
Sleeping With Other People is the movie Amy Schumer thought she was making this year.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is just about perfect.
The biggest, most flamboyant feat of cinematic imagination in 2015 was George Miller’s Mad Max:Fury Road. Miller piles on mythic themes, literary allusions, hallucinatory images, postmodern feminist theory, filters everything through a desert punk aesthetic, cranks the amp to 11 and lets things rip. I loved it.
Everything serves director Judd Apatow’s conventional moral, which requires renouncing all non-traditional values and settling down to start a family. Seriously, Apatow makes Amy Schumer admit she’s a mess before she can land the guy and live happily ever after.
The fifth Mission: Impossible movie is written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie… who comes up with action set-pieces that recall classic Loony Tunes shorts – violent but bloodless, little at stake beyond the next gag.
When I heard Ridley Scott was directing the movie adaptation, I thought he was a brilliant choice; of course, I though Sarah Palin was a great vice-presidential pick by John McCain. Like Palin, Scott quickly shows his weaknesses and doubles down – he’s a visual technician whose images hold little wonder (they’re not awe-inspiring), and he’s not interested in what’s going on in Watney’s head, either.