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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Some Personal Thoughts on the Legacy and Future of Ghostbusters
Among the many dreadful remakes and reboots (those already released and those in some form of production) there has been one property that, thanks in large part to production snags, has seemingly retained its dignity and integrity. Well, it looks like those hurdles have been removed, or rather disregarded because as of right now, we are going to get *shudders* a third Ghostbuters. But that’s if this ins’t just another rumor/failed promise…ugg, getting so very tired of that. So whether or not this actually pans out I thought, after a long week, I’d use this post as the perfect way to clear my head of the ongoing Ghostbusters concerns and mental threads that have just had the…
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The Gun in Your Hand: Looper's Cycles of Violence
(Foreword: Looper began its theatrical run last Friday, and at this point I presume most of you have seen it or are going to see it. That said, if you have not seen the film, steer clear of this essay; it is spoiler-heavy by the third paragraph. I also don’t rehash plot points in detail. Read at your own risk if you want to see the film blind.) Like many other films of its kind, Rian Johnson’s Looper is a time travel yarn that isn’t actually at all about time travel. One might argue that Johnson’s just letting himself off the hook by leaving the mechanics of such technology go unexplained, but truthfully the decision…
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Going Back to the Cabin: The Horror of Formula
At first blush, Drew Goddard’s long-awaited meta-horror film Cabin in the Woods (my review) is designed to foster invested discussion of its genre among both its core and secondary audiences. It’s an unavoidable byproduct of meta-filmmaking of any kind; movies that peer behind the scenes, so to speak, lend themselves to more intensive conversation by virtue of their defining sense of self-awareness. Put differently, movie fans like talking about movies that are about movies, and Cabin, brandishing the tropes of horror cinema with an inwardly critical sense of pride, certainly fits that description. The film pulls off a tricky balancing act, existing as a genuine entry in horror canon while also serving as…
