Category: Reviews

This Is The End: Hopefully, Yes

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The entire movie looks this goddamn ugly, albeit higher resolution. (Sorry, this was the best image I could find online that represented the actual look of it and wasn’t just production stills or whatever.)

This Is The End (2013)
Written and Directed by Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen
107 min.

This film doesn’t need to exist.

I don’t mean that in a hyperbolic, insulting way. It’s completely true. This is an entirely superfluous film. And I’m sure those involved would agree, and giggle at the thought (especially the giggle-prone Rogen) and take pride in the fact that they made such a useless movie. But I’m not smiling, or laughing, or giggling.
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After Earth: Blame Smith, Not Shyamalan

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After Earth (2013)
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Screenplay by Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan
Story by Will Smith
100 min.

Tommy Lee Jones once said that the secret to being funny is standing next to Will Smith.  Like any leading man, Smith is classically handsome, cut from steel, infinitely charming, and possesses an inexplicable charisma that glues your eyes to him.  His son does not.  Jaden Smith’s eyes are like Vin Diesel’s—boring and lifeless.  And his acting is about ten billion times worse.
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The Happening: A Filmmaker’s Film

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Shyamalan wants you to look at this image and see evil. That’s a beautiful thing.

The Happening (2008)
Written & Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
91 min.

Spoiler-free.

There exists a phenomenon in the arts where an artist, or a given work, is so bursting with subtle, glorious aspects that only fellow artists in the field or truly knowledgable critics can pick up on that when ‘civilians’ check it out, they see it as simply empty and stupid and boring. Their untrained eyes are so fixed on the surface elements that they miss the masterful sleights of hand underneath. This happened with The Happening. What’s unique here though is that filmmakers, for some reason, have yet to jump in and defend it and help civilians understand its wonderful aspects—probably because, for the most part, they themselves are just as clueless.
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Pieta: How To Pander To A New Audience Without Losing Your Soul

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Pieta (2012)
Written and Directed by Kim Ki-duk
104 min.

Spoiler-free.

Kim Ki-duk is one of my absolute favorite filmmakers. And I only even like about half his movies. Some of them are just awful. But the ones I like, I really like. And a few of them, I fucking love. 

A lot of people use the word ‘love’ lightly when it comes to movies. These people have most likely never truly been in love with a movie. When you truly love a movie, it becomes a part of your body. The movie finishes, and you look down, and suddenly you have another arm or something. And you’re like, ‘Well, that’s there now.’ You have no impulse to amputate it. It’s truly a part of you, just like every other part that makes up your whole. To rid yourself of it would be to rid yourself of yourself.
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Upstream Color: Great Story, Awful Storytelling

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Upstream Color (2013)
Written and Directed by Shane Carruth
96 min.

What’s more important, story or storytelling? I honestly have no idea.

A great story will stick with you for the rest of your life, whether or not it’s told well, because the beats of it, the brilliant bare components, resonate with your soul and become a part of you, and help expand how you see the world on a moral level. ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ is a great story. It’s so great we don’t even stop and think about how great it is. It’s just a part of us, as humans. You almost can’t remember a time in your life when you didn’t know it. And even if someone were to tell it to a little kid really poorly, its truth and importance would still come through.
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