To many individuals out there, going to the movies (as casual an outing as it may be) is an experience that is both revered and awe-inspiring. Further, it is, and has always been, a form of entertainment based on complicated and calculated technologies coming together in unison for a singular event. Film, both the medium and its exhibition, is only as good as the sum of the visual and auditory aspects; a film’s most tangible components. Together they can create fireworks, but when one lacks, so too does the other. To put it simply, you don’t notice when things are working well, only when they aren’t. Sure we pay money, top dollar in fact,…
-
-
Post-Script: Thoughts On Film, Reality, and the Boston Marathon
It’s the start of a normal working day. People mill about on the streets and in cafes, procuring the tonics they need to begin their mornings in earnest and setting off on their commutes to make it to the office; in the space between these separate but related endeavors, they catch up on current events on television. The news, as it so often can be, sings a dour note to match the day’s cloudiness, but that’s okay, because bleakness and dreariness are the tragic standard for the crowds filtering through the city’s winding, compressed avenues on their way to their respective jobs. A thundering crash, the acrid scent of burning…
-
R.I.P. Roger Ebert
As a kid, I grew up in a house filled with love and reverence for film. Some of my earliest memories were watching the old Adam West Batman show. But before it came on there was always this show about these two guys sitting in a theater discussing (and arguing) about movies. Yes, it was Siskel & Ebert. I was too young to know what movies they were talking about as well as understand their criticisms, but I always understood and loved when they gave their trademark “two thumbs up”. Even at 5 years of age, what really resonated with me were the times when Roger Ebert would throw an arm…
-
The Oscars: Post-Script
Strange that days after this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, I feel like I have little to say about it. As it happens– as it usually does– there’s plenty to be said about the honors meted out to the slender sample size of 2012’s “best”, but dishing about the process is exhausting and nearly futile in the tidal wave of faux-analysis that invariably follows every Oscar presentation. (And actual, respectable analysis. Not all analyses are made equal.) That’s to say nothing of the baggage that we all bring to the AMPAS’s annual self-congratulatory shindig and the conflicting frustration and indifference many of us feel toward them; put another way, it’s hard…
-
Happy Birthday To Us…Go,See,Talk Turns 4!
Four years is a long time. It’s the term that a US president spends in office, the time some college students spend at a University, it’s the time between the Olympics and even the World Cup. To some, 4 years may not seem like a long time but in the entertainment world it is a lifetime. It sure feels like it especially when I try to recall my attempts to start a “movie blog” waaaay back then. When I started Go,See,Talk in 2009 I had no idea what I was getting into. It seemed everyone had a movie website, but I thought why not try my hand at it. Frankly,…
-
'Warm Bodies' and the 'Twilight' Factor
We’ve passed the point where adapting young adult novels has become a simple trend in cinema, so pointing out the increase in proliferation of YA movie adaptations since 2008 is something of a pointless exercise. Of course YA has won its own cinematic categorization and earned the boon of increased cultural prominence; the success of Twilight alone justifies its ascendance, which started as a slow burn before recently erupting with a massive slate of releases for 2013 (notably: Beautiful Creatures, The Mortal Instruments, The Host, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Percy Jackson & the Sea of Monsters) and beyond (Vampire Academy, The Night Circus, Matched, and of course further installments in…
-
Last Stands and Bittersweet Lives: Getting to Know Ji-Woon Kim
January 18th came and went without much critical or commercial fanfare for Ji-woon Kim, the first of three South Korean directors to break into the American studio system this year*; that’s sort of a king bummer, at least in part because The Last Stand, his half self-aware, half self-serious, respectably actiony Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, deserves to be more of a hit than its paltry $7.7 million box office take will allow. (You may recall that we had a lot of fun with the film ourselves.) But mostly this is sour news because Kim’s a great filmmaker, and nothing would be more disappointing than seeing him shunned out of the States…
-
Innocence Quirked: Wes Anderson's Kingdom
In seventeen years, Wes Anderson’s body of work has come to be identified by a specific, recurring set of the thematic interests and stylistic proclivities. His films contain deep-rooted traces of discontent and anger; his characters, whether they’re principal or secondary, carry parental (often paternal) chips on their shoulders and hail from families so dysfunctional that the label scarcely does them justice; he stages his mis-en-scene with the curated whimsy of a stage play. Yet despite his notoriety for maintaining a consistent aesthetic throughout his career and exploring the same concepts from picture to picture (but through different facets), it has taken Anderson nearly two decades to make a film…
-
The Shape of Things to Come – GST’s Most Anticipated Films of 2013
We’ve closed the books on 2012 here at Go, See, Talk!– you can catch up on all of our individual takes on the year here, here, here, and here— and officially declared it “great”. That means that the time for retrospection has come and gone, and the time to look ahead has arrived. If 2012 turned out to be a banner year for film as an industry and as an art form, then what will 2013 bring? One short answer: a whole lot of science fiction. Indeed, nearly half of the entries on this list comfortably underneath that distinct storytelling umbrella, many of quite high profile, and that’s not even to…
-
3 Films & 48 FPS: In Defense of 'The Hobbit'
For roughly half of my life, I have been a died-in-the-wool J.R.R. Tolkien fan and a frequent visitor to the fantasy realm of Middle Earth. I’ve read each of Tolkien’s significant works which take place in that fantasy world– The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings novels, and The Silmarillion— several dozen times in total, and I’ve seen each of the films based on the Rings books numerous times in theaters. (True story: I watched The Two Towers thirteen times in its theatrical run. I am capable of being that guy.) When China Miéville described Tolkien as, “the wen on the arse of fantasy literature”, I felt a sudden need…
-
Go, See, Thank: The Directors, Movies, and Actors We're Grateful For
We’re a seasonal group here at Go, See, Talk!– one only need go back a month to our Halloween tournament for proof!– and so in the spirit of Turkey Day and giving thanks, we all got together and hand-picked one director, movie, and actor or actress apiece who we’re thankful for. If you know us well enough, then some of these picks should seem right in line with our proclivities and tastes. Then again, maybe we’ll surprise you anyhow. Bill Graham: The director I’m most thankful for is Guillermo del Toro. He lives and breathes monsters, and every time his name is attached to something new, I get a surge…
-
You Fall, I'll Catch You: Compassion and Bravery in Cloud Atlas
It’s fitting that Cloud Atlas, an inherently brave commercial and artistic venture, places heavy thematic emphasis on instances of human bravery in its sprawl of interwoven plot lines. Andy and Lana Wachowski haven’t built their career together by making cinema that follows traditional notions of filmmaking, after all– going back to 1999, The Matrix completely rewrote the rules of action films in terms of how they’re crafted both visually and thematically, while 2008’s Speed Racer very much defied standards of editing and storytelling in trippy, audacious ways. Taking all of that into account, Cloud Atlas might almost feel like an expected work from the Wachowskis– like the other movies of their oeuvre, it bucks convention, specifically…
