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  • SPECTRE Review

    spectre

    (This review is split into two halves. The first section is spoiler-free. Then, below, I will delve into some specifics for those who have seen the film)

    SPECTRE is a continuation of the look, feel, and character-centric storytelling present in Skyfall, and on that level, it is a roaring success. Everything from the stunts to the cinematography to the editing to the set pieces are terrific, some of the very best in the series. Despite its 2 hour and 30 minute runtime (long even for a franchise that is notorious for 2-hour-plus entries), SPECTRE flies by, never feeling like it’s wasting your time.

    But before we start talking in-depth about all that SPECTRE does right, the elephant in the room needs to be acknowledged: yes, SPECTRE has some narrative issues. As I’ll go into further below in my “Spoiler” section, quite a number of story elements don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s not difficult to pick SPECTRE apart, as one plot hole or illogical plot string just leads to another, and soon the whole thing is unraveling like a ball of yarn. It can really make you wonder if the screenwriters were paying any attention to these issues at all.

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  • James Bond Fridays: The Archive

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    Over the past year, I have occasionally participated in an event of my own making called James Bond Friday. It’s pretty much what you’d expect: I would watch a James Bond movie, slowly working my way through the entire series, and I would tweet about it.

    While going back over my tweets to refresh my memory on certain films in the franchise, I decided that some of these were pretty funny (possibly funnier out of context), and figured I’d share them all with you here!

    A couple notes. First of all, I didn’t livetweet EVERY movie in the franchise, but I did at least tweet SOMETHING for 16 of them. That’s a whole lot of tweets. Also, I’m copy/pasting these EXACTLY  how they were, typos, mistakes, and all. Given how quickly I was rattling these off, this means that there are a few things that are inaccurate (most of which I correct myself in future tweets), and lots of spelling and typing errors that I would normally be ashamed of on this site. But take this as it is: a glimpse into my mind as I watched 16 movies of varying degrees of insanity. (more…)

  • The James Bond Retrospective

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    Just last week, the latest movie in the Bond franchise, SPECTRE, was released. I’ll be reviewing that later this week, but one thing that really struck me about it was how the history of the franchise colors your feelings and expectations of the film. I love the Daniel Craig Bond films to death, but having recently watched through the entire Bond franchise, from Dr. No to Spectre, I now have an even deeper appreciation for what the more recent films have set out to do.

    This particular piece will set out to define what, exactly, makes a Bond movie a Bond movie by tracing the origins and evolution of the franchise. (more…)

  • The Leftovers Season 2 Part 1 Review

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    (This review contains no explicit spoilers)

    Last year, The Leftovers was an interesting show with a terrific premise, which featured moments (and full episodes) of brilliance amongst a sea of depression and tonal monotony. The concept, in which 2% of the world’s population disappeared without a trace, is engaging enough to let it coast for a number of episodes, but it ultimately grew stale by the last stretch of episodes. Without any indication of who the characters were BEFORE “the departure” until the penultimate episode of the season, their behavior became redundant rather than illuminating, and a number of the subplots, including Kevin Garvey’s dangerous sleepwalking and the appeal of the white-clad chain-smoking Guilty Remnant cult, were never given enough clarity to become meaningful.

    There was a sense during the season that, with just a few tweaks, The Leftovers could have been transcendent television. If only we had understood the central characters sooner, or had more focused narratives (like the two best episodes of the season, “Two Boats and a Helicopter” and “Guest”), or a more diverse and unpredictable tone. Then news came out that not only was The Leftovers getting a second season, but it was leaving behind its source material (Tom Perrotta’s book, which was fully adapted in the first season) AND its central location to start anew. Was this a desperate gamble to remain relevant in a second season, or a creative opportunity to recenter on the elements that worked the best in season one?

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  • Can Marketing Ruin A Piece of Entertainment?

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    This month, Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak hit theaters, and some have been coming away disappointed. It’s not that it’s a bad movie (it’s quite good, actually), but that it’s not particularly scary. As protagonist Edith Cushing repeats throughout the movie, it is not actually a “ghost story,” but a “story with ghosts,” in which the “ghosts are metaphors.” It’s a Gothic romance, sort of a cross between classic Charles Dickens and a Hammer Film Production. But you wouldn’t know that from the advertisements, which heavily emphasize the horror aspects of the film.

    In the world of video games, a similar problem occurred last week with Halo 5. The promotional campaign focused on a head-to-head with dual protagonists Locke and Master Chief, with one executing the other. However, fans have quickly come to discover that the advertisements were a complete diversion, extremely mischaracterizing the story with inaccurate plot points and scenes which flat-out don’t exist in the title. Disappointment with the campaign story has been consistent in reviews and fan discussions about the game.

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