I occasionally have a perverse compulsion to torture my poor son Thomas during our Film After 11 podcast. Knowing how little patience he has for science fiction and big special effects movies from the late 1970s or early 1980s (outside of Star Wars, of course), I subjected him this week to Moonraker, special agent James… Read More Film After 11 Podcast | Moonraker (1979)
Despite its sci-fi trappings and high-concept premise, the 2009 drama Moon is primarily an understated character piece about isolation, personal identity, and the dehumanizing oppression of unchecked corporate greed. Unlike most science fiction cinema these days, the film has no action scenes and no suspense-filled set-pieces of note. Mostly, it’s a one-man showcase for character… Read More Where Are We Now? | Moon (2009)
To be honest about it, I was at a loss in choosing a movie to watch for the Film After 11 podcast this week. I had a few conflicting ideas, but none I was ready to do. My son Joseph, who’s a big Indiana Jones fan, requested the fourth movie in that series, the divisive… Read More Film After 11 Podcast | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Released way back in the distant past of 1983, Scottish filmmaker Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero concerns a major industrial corporation’s attempt to buy up the land in a rural community in order to strip it of all natural resources, unconcerned with what effects that will have on the environment or local culture. Thankfully, it’s a… Read More A Little Time Is All We Have Left | Local Hero (1983) Criterion Blu-ray
Flagrantly and with full intention violating my own arbitrary rule against watching R-rated movies for our Film After 11 podcast (at least knowingly so), I decided to introduce one of my sons to John Woo’s blood-soaked action masterpiece The Killer this week. Without spoiling anything, it’s safe to say the kid was an instant fan.… Read More Film After 11 Podcast | The Killer (1989) Including 4K Ultra HD Disc Review
If technically Stanley Kubrick’s second feature film, the director almost entirely disowned his first (1952’s Fear and Desire) and considered Killer’s Kiss to be the start of his filmmaking career. Made when he was just 27-years-old, the noir thriller is clearly a formative work, unpolished and lacking either the intellectual or technical rigor Kubrick would… Read More Kubrick in Progress | Killer’s Kiss (1955) Criterion Collection Blu-ray
How well does The Sixth Sense play for a modern kid today who doesn’t know much about it? For that matter, how well does one of the most famous plot-twist movies in cinema history hold up to repeat viewings for someone who already knows the ending? Those are the big questions we explore in this… Read More Film After 11 Podcast | The Sixth Sense (1999)
Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece 8 ½ is remembered, rightly so, as a defining work of Surrealist cinema. Part of that film’s genius is the way its fantastical elements are rooted in an autobiographical confession for the director’s own personal flaws, self-absorption, and lousy treatment of the women in his life. Attempting at least somewhat of… Read More Perception and Reality Are Two Different Things | Juliet of the Spirits (1965) Criterion Blu-ray
My last excuse for not doing a new Film After 11 podcast episode was that the family and I all went on vacation and had no time to record one, so we ran a rerun instead. I fully expected to come back prepared to watch a new movie with one of my sons and record… Read More Film After 11 Podcast | Ramblings on Ridley Scott + The Martian (2015)
As Christopher Nolan has increasingly focused on huge and bombastic IMAX spectacles, almost to the point that he’ll soon have nowhere bigger left to go, his very small and intimate 2002 thriller Insomnia often gets lost in the arc of the director’s career. Even though I doubt many fans would say they dislike it, when… Read More Late Nights Gettin’ to You? | Insomnia (2002)
