One of the elements of animation that Pixar has always excelled at that will garner them a bonafide place in history books and text books about storytelling and animation (whether you’re sick of seeing them on TV and awards shows or not) is the fact that the animators and writers in the studio are able to understand that animation is just as much a narrative experience as it is about sight and sound. As well you can also surround an animated film around sight and sound and little dialogue without overloading us with explosions and colors.
Tag Archives: D
Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics (2010)
The purpose of “Secret Origins” is two fold. What with DC Comics finally putting their characters on the fast track to big budget films in the box office, this ninety minute documentary is meant to school new audiences that might be interested in learning about characters they’re only vaguely familiar with. If you’ll notice, the only characters spotlighted in this documentary are those that have had movies in theaters or have big budget movies coming to them, thus we get to explore Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Watchmen and The Flash, all the while this is meant as a promotional tool for the magic and wonder that is DC Comics. The documentary is really just a recounting of the creations of classic iconic superheroes from their company and there’s never really an exploration in to the darker side of the company.
Dead Set (2008)
“Does this mean we’re not on telly anymore?”
Reality television is much too ingrained and injected in to the base of our society and culture to consider it a passing fad these days. We’re living in a world where we’re absolutely obsessed by surveillance, voyeurism and the like to where we can’t get enough of it and we’re provided with an abundance of television that feeds such needs. “Dead Set,” originally a five part television mini-series,” is set in the UK where reality television is a national past time setting down on a society who is consumed by it. It’s so consumed by tabloids and scandals, it can’t stop and notice that we’re being consumed by a ravenous disease turning our entire society in to flesh eating zombies.
Death Wish (1974)
Before “The Punisher” ever graced the big screen director Michael winner’s 1974 revenge flick brought to screen a psychotic man armed with a hand gun avenging his family who suffered a wicked fate by the hands of senseless crime. In a time where violence and rape was rampant in New York City, “Death Wish” is still a surprising little thriller that not only puts on display the grim and grimy depths of the Big Apple in the seventies, but the descent in to sheer lunacy one mild mannered man takes when his wife and daughter are attacked and raped in their apartment. The thugs get away but protagonist Paul Kersey’s wife dies and he’s forced to bear witness to his daughter lose her sanity due to the severity of the attack she and her mother endured.
Demoni (Demons) (1985)
If you look at “Demoni” from a critical point of view, then you’re not going to enjoy it too much. Who is the messenger of this whole event? Why does the main character envision him before the whole horror goes down? Why is he handing out invitations? What makes these people so special who have the invitations? Why did he pick these people? What was his goal? Who built this movie theater everyone attends? Who funded it? Was it Satan? Why choose a movie theater to take over the world? Why is this demonic movie that plays in the theater cursed? Why is the prop mask that belongs to the movie capable of turning someone in to a demon? Why, if you want to take over the world, do you hide the prop behind a glass? Is there security in this theater?
Daylight (1996)
1996’s “Daylight” is pretty much just a nineties version of “The Poseidon Adventure.” There’s an eccentric old couple, a resistant tough guy constantly battling with our hero, a cynical woman who bonds with the hero, an epic disaster that is impossible to rebound from, a moment where our characters have to swim under water to make it to a safe zone hoping to escape inevitable drowning, in the climax we see authorities opening a hatch for our victims to escape through, and like Hackman’s hero, Stallone even screams at god as he fights to live in the climax.
Deaden (2006)
I’m a real sucker for revenge films and for the longest time I’ve tried to track down this little indie production and see what the fuss was about. This basically mini-budget action thriller is a typical raw vengeance piece that holds pieces of The Punisher, Death Wish and Scarface with just the right amount of Irish edge that keeps the story moving at a brisk pace. The chaos and carnage that is inflicted by our main character Rane is just sadistic, but in the end it’s a sick and demented series of payback plots for a group of sick and demented people.