In the past I have driz­zled praise all over Pixar, specif­i­cally the fantasy-realist films that Brad Bird has made with them. There are many rea­sons to heap lau­rels on the Disney-owned ani­ma­tion stu­dio: its inno­va­tion in the field of com­puter ani­ma­tion before such a thing even existed, its cre­ative use of all avail­able tools at any given point in their his­tory, its abil­ity to cap­ti­vate the minds and pocket books of chil­dren and adults alike. “Wall•E”, how­ever, is some­thing dif­fer­ent, some­thing more than any of us thought these imag­i­neers were capa­ble of.
Read on…

“I’m work­ing on some­thing big.”

The last thing you’d think the world needs is another comic book movie fran­chise, and yet Jon Favreau’s Iron Man breathes fresh air into an oth­er­wise stale sum­mer block­buster sea­son. It has all the sta­ples of a big sum­mer hit (star power; grade A spe­cial effects; built in rock anthem) but it does feel, even if only in the tini­est way, that some­thing like the comic book genre in large part has been rethought, and not a moment too soon.

The sum­mer of 2007, the most suc­cess­ful on record, was rid­dled with sequels that helped solid­ify the stu­dios’ ridicu­lous haul to the bank. The pow­ers that be knew there would be only one way to come close to mak­ing ludi­crous amounts of money this sum­mer with nary a three­quel in sight: go back to the draw­ing board and start up great new fran­chises. Iron Man is the first taste we have of this new sea­son of grass-roots hero­ism, and it is a scorcher of a first look. Read on…

Ahhh, how come I never could fin­ish this screen­play? Tell me what you think of the start.

                 INT. DANIEL'S APARTMENT - DAWN

                 RIVKAH, 20, is lying naked under the covers, fast asleep.
                 DANIEL, 28, is fully dressed, quietly putting his shoes
                 on, sitting at the foot of the bed.
 Read on...

It was lit­tle more than a decade ago that a young P.T. Anderson com­pleted a video scene at the Sundance lab that showed not only promise, but genius. The result­ing Sydney, which would be renamed Hard Eight gained Mr. Anderson enough recog­ni­tion to be given rel­a­tively free reign at New Line Cinema to make Boogie Nights, all the while retain­ing and grow­ing his tal­ented cabal of cre­ative geniuses. You know most of them: actors Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, and Philip Seymour Hoffman among oth­ers; direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy Robert Elswit; and com­poser Jon Brion. There are oth­ers, but the pre­vi­ous list rep­re­sents those whose careers sky­rock­eted in sync with this American auteur.

 

Why the his­tory les­son? Because, save for Robert Elswit’s gor­geous pho­tog­ra­phy, all of the usual sus­pects are notice­ably (and thank­fully) miss­ing from Paul Thomas Anderson’s lat­est film, There Will Be Blood. Like so many younger American film­mak­ers, he has walked the line between being an artist and a rock star. It’s not so hard to see why. His films all deal with Los Angeles, fame, drugs, vio­lence, mas­culin­ity and that con­coc­tion of all that is good and evil, The American Dream. But ever since the gar­gan­tuan suc­cess of Boogie Nights, Mr. Anderson has retracted into his own thoughts for fear of mak­ing the wrong movie, and we as an audi­ence have to suf­fer for it. It’s been five years since he made Punch Drunk Love, which was four years after Magnolia. Who knows the next time we’ll see his name in lights.

But any­way, let’s deal with the film at hand. Read on…

Another year has flown by, far too fast I might add. So in the great tra­di­tion of the new year, I too will toss my hat in and break the year down to a list. What fol­lows is a list that I thought very lit­tle about before writ­ing. They are in some sort of order, but in truth, it makes no dif­fer­ent. By read­ing my lengthy blurbs, you’ll notice that direc­tion and impact make up a huge per­cent­age of my grad­ing cri­te­ria. 2007 is one of the best years in the his­tory of the movie busi­ness, and the audi­ences get to ben­e­fit from that cash­flow. That means there’s more money for bet­ter films to come along, but also more demand for fran­chise crap. When you look at my list, you’ll see some of those fran­chise bits can be amaz­ing. Enough pre­am­ble, enjoy and leave com­ments with your thoughts. Happy New Year. Read on…