ReelChange Blog

May 7, 2007

Notes on Spiderman 3

Filed under: Action, Comedy, Comic Books, Sequels, Summer Movies — JDobbsRosa @ 11:42 am

Summer movie season is finally in full swing! (Gene Shalit, eat your heart out.) I’ve been out of review writing for a while and it’s not really my bag, but this year’s summer movie blog will be more of the “Notes on …” format I originally pictured. It’s just a record of my thoughts on films as I see them, without trying to sand down the edges and make the pieces fit too nicely. Essentially, you’ll be looking at an unstructured rough draft of a review that will never be written.

Spiderman 2 ripped off Superman 2 with the whole “Hero turns his back on herodom to get the girl only to return to the tights to save the day in the end,” so it seems fitting that Spiderman 3 had a little too much comedy and a corrupted dark version of our hero. I was waiting for Thomas Hayden Church to ski down the side of a sky scraper or black suited Spidey to straighten out the Leaning Tower of Pisa. (more…)

August 21, 2006

Notes on a Snakes on a Plane

Filed under: Action, Comedy, Horror, Summer Movies — JDobbsRosa @ 12:16 pm


It’s hard to write up a picture like Snakes on a Plane this late in the game, after it has had more ink spilled on it than almost anything else of the summer, but I’ve got a thing or two to say on the subject and, hell, Slate keeps letting an idiot like Dana Stevens file reviews. Let’s start with a few thoughts on the hype:

SNAKES!The mainstream entertainment press jumped on board the mostly Internet-fueled hype, without really seeming to get why except for knowing it was the “cool” thing to do. In a lot of ways I’d describe the hype on SoaP with that hoary old Louis Armstrong quote about jazz: “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” I’ve never really been at more of a loss for words than when I tried to quantify my reasons for looking forward to the picture. It seems that both sides of the divide agree on the general facts: The concept is bad and the title is worse. Where the discord happens is in the tone with which one states these facts. To resort to another well-worn phrase: if you’re going to say it, you best smile when you do. (more…)

July 10, 2006

Notes on Pirates of the Caribbean:
 Dead Man’s Chest

Filed under: Action, Disney, Sequels, Summer Movies — JDobbsRosa @ 3:25 pm

Note: As with most items on ReelChange.com, there is a spoiler risk, and this is primarily intended for consumption after viewing the film in question.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which follows the franchise naming conventions of the last couple of decades by adopting a colon early and eschewing numbers or, god forbid, roman numerals, opens with a shot that sets up my main question for these notes: Do these filmmakers really know what they are doing?

This isn’t a question of blockbuster filmmaking competence. Obviously, these are savvy summer blockbuster, audience-testing, demographic-targeting, opening-weekend-box-office-ruling, advertising tie-in, franchise-stroking business people, but are they filmmakers who are consciously aware of what they are doing? (more…)

June 29, 2006

Notes on Superman Returns

Filed under: Action, Comic Books, Sequels, Summer Movies — JDobbsRosa @ 10:23 am

Routh as Superman

I’d like to start these overwhelmingly positive notes with a negative thought that only cursorily involves Superman Returns. If I read one more “There’s no more originality in Hollywood” ramble by some under-watched film journalist hack, I will make it my life’s work to get that “writer” fired and returned to the Detroit Free Press or some other lame media outlet faster than the proverbial speeding bullet.

There’s nothing original in Hollywood? Everything is either a remake, or a sequel, or an adaptation of something popular?

I have three things to say to you.

  1. How can you bitch about originality while writing the same lame piece as bunch of other junket whores who know less about film than the guys at the sports desk?
  2. Yes, and that’s how it’s always been.

    3. And finally, bringing us to the subject at hand:

  3. That doesn’t mean it has to be bad.

(more…)

June 16, 2006

Notes on Banlieue 13 (District B13)

Filed under: Action, Import, Martial Arts, Summer Movies — JDobbsRosa @ 1:31 pm

Roger CormanLuc Besson is somehow becoming the new Roger Corman. Both men started their careers directing low budget genre pieces with smart original twists. Then each went on to higher profile genre pieces, which garnered more fans without losing much of their underground hipster cred, and now Besson, like Corman before him, has become primarily a talent scout, a producer, and a concept man whose name on the credits generally indicates, at the very least, a good time for the fans.Luc Besson

It’s not that Kiss of the Dragon or The Transporter or the original French version of Taxi were masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination, but they are all enjoyable works with a little more smarts and a lot more style than 90% of actioners with higher budgets and more impressive pedigrees. (more…)

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