Reviews of the Bosch

I’ve never covered a rock opera before. I’ve never really listened to a rock opera either. But it’s an interesting form of music: a series of songs that convey a single narrative. As such it’s easier to adapt them to films if so chosen, as demonstrated by such divergent examples as Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Andrew Lord Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar . But  Tommy  by The Who, I think especially deserves to be looked at, not only for being directed by one of Britain’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Ken Russell, but for its modern yet classically operatic story, its filmmaking, and how it translated the bands’ popular music to a new visual art form. Also I just really dig The Who’s music. Tommy Walker (Roger Daltrey) is the son of a Second World War pilot who was believed to be killed in action. After a traumatic incident in his childhood brought on by his mother Nora (Ann-Margaret) and her lover Frank (Oliver Reed), he reverts to a semi-catatonic state rendering him deaf, ...

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom  was never going to be a good movie. The synopsis as presented in the trailers was much too ridiculous to work in any meaningful way. Whether it was going to be enjoyable in its sheer over-the-top indulgence or gruelling in its mundane plot and numbing action, it was going to be bad either way. And that in and of itself is disappointing. Jurassic Park  was possibly the perfect blockbuster, offering thrills and excitement as well as a compelling narrative bolstered by a brilliant science fiction concept, and engaging characters in equal measure. And none of its sequels have been near as good.  Fallen Kingdom  however, delivers a strong argument for being the worst one yet. Three years after the incident at Jurassic World, a volcano on Isla Nublar is ready to erupt with all the remaining dinosaurs in its way. Now leading a Dinosaur Protection organization, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is recruited by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall...

A lot of us when we were young had some stupid activity we liked to engage in with our friends that was fun at the time but generally something we grew out of. Perhaps it was a recreational summer game like paintball, capture-the-flag, or just plain water balloon warfare, and often it was played with intensity, and, for creative or competitive types, complexity. And for whatever problems there may be with the comedy Tag , from first-time director Jeff Tomsic, it does tap into the nostalgia of that kind of dumb fun and does a good job representing it. Inspired by the real-life story of a group of men from Spokane, Washington who’ve played a month-long game of tag for over thirty years, the movie follows five men who engage in the same activity to elaborate ends every May. With the never-been-tagged champion Jerry (Jeremy Renner) retiring after his wedding this year, his old friends Hogan (Ed Helms), Callahan (Jon Hamm), Chilli (Jake Johnson), and Sable (Hannibal Burress) team up ...

By 1974, the road movie was a popular genre among youth in America. Usually these films starred young people in some act of rebellion against authority while travelling great distances, and played with themes of independence, self-assuredness, and, though often overlooked by audiences of the time, consequence. It’s a type of movie that seemingly began with the counter-culture classic Easy Rider , but its roots can be traced to Bonnie and Clyde  in 1967. And it’s that film in particular that seems to have been at the forefront of Steven Spielberg’s mind when he made his debut theatrical picture, The Sugarland Express ; a comedy-crime road film about a couple being chased by the police while trying to retrieve their son from foster care. It’s a movie that’s very much of its time but doesn’t quite have the capacity to transgress that time as those other films did. It is based on a true story though. The names and some of the circumstances were altered for creative licence, b...

It’s rare for a horror movie to maintain such a consistent creepiness without necessarily subverting expectations the way Hereditary  does. The debut feature from Ari Aster recycles a number of genre conventions, but does so in a sheath of intricate technical prowess, clever devices and homages, and frightfully real performances. After the death of the eccentric and estranged grandmother of the Graham family, Annie (Toni Collette) tries to reconcile her relationship with her late mother while still being haunted by her presence. While her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), tries to move on, their children: teenage son Peter (Alex Wolff) and introverted daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) experience a number of disturbing visions and eerie occurrences. Soon the whole family finds themselves being manipulated by the powerful remnants of their demented matriarch. The atmosphere of Hereditary is pretty unsettling from the start. A part of that is of course due to the tone, musical sc...

The Incredibles  wasn’t just a great Pixar movie. It was the film that proved the campy, hyper-realistic, and fantastical superhero story could still work -a refreshing departure for a genre that for a long time has been concerned with dark tones, relatability, and complex characterization. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, it can’t be denied the 2004 animated movie is closer to the roots of superhero comics than most of its big-budget compatriots. It’s also the only Pixar movie that deliberately set itself up for a sequel, only to be the last from the early era to get one. After a couple forays into live-action films, Pixar’s best director Brad Bird came back to follow up the fan favourite movie fourteen years later. And judging from the sold out showings two nights in a row at my theatre (which never sells out), fans have been clamouring for it all this time. Despite how long it’s been, Incredibles 2  picks up right where the first movie left off. After col...

Like many young directors, Spielberg got his start in T.V. Working on a number of series from Marcus Welby M.D.  to The Name of the Game and showing a cinematic eye throughout got Spielberg some early attention in the industry (that and perhaps a friendship with Universal head Sidney Sheinberg). When ABC acquired the rights to make a movie-of-the-week adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story Duel , he lobbied to direct it, having been attracted to the story’s sense of tension. It was a massive undertaking for a T.V. movie, requiring a ton of location shooting and thus a lot more production time before its airing a week after post. But Spielberg was up to the task, directing it as well as he could muster. The result is considered by many to be one of the best T.V. movies ever made, and I have to agree. Though that may be for Richard Matheson’s script as much if not more than Spielberg’s budding skills as a filmmaker. Returning home from a business trip across the Califo...

It didn’t take long for Sebastián Lelio, the Chilean director of the Academy Award winning A Fantastic Woman , to begin to branch out internationally -by which I mean to English-language cinema with prominent English-language actors and crew. But he continues to be drawn to the subject matter of marginalized or suppressed sexual freedom with Disobedience , an adaptation of the novel by Naomi Alderman. Written by Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, it’s a film that does justice to, if not the novel, the themes and message it clearly wanted to relate. Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) returns home to London from New York after learning of the death of her father, an esteemed Orthodox Jewish rav (Anton Lesser). Having been ousted by the community for leaving the faith, her return is awkward for everyone except her childhood friends Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), her fathers’ successor, and his wife Esti (Rachel McAdams) who’d once been Ronits’ lover. But with her return, the womens’ feelings ...

Ocean’s Eight  is the second reboot of Ocean’s 11 , the 1960 Rat Pack caper film that was just an excuse to get a bunch of celebrities together to pull off a heist. It’s fitting then that the subsequent Ocean’s Eleven , its two sequels, and now Ocean’s Eight  were also mostly excuses to get a bunch of celebrities together to pull off a heist. What sets this recent film apart is its decision to star an all-female cast, in contrast to the men’s only club of previous outings. Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 remake took steps to diversify the races and ages of its crew but stopped short of gender. Ocean’s Eight  wants to show the world that women can commit mass burglary and look good doing it too. Con artist Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), sister of Danny, is released from prison after having been framed by her ex-boyfriend Claude (Richard Armitage). Reuniting with her friend Lou (Cate Blanchett), she conspires to pull off a diamond heist at the Met Gala targeting a necklace ...

Why Spielberg? Of all the directors with great bodies of work, why him? I could talk about Kurosawa or Satyajit Ray, the movies of Carl Theodor Dreyer or David Lean. Surely Spielberg’s too popular, too Hollywood, to talk about already. I highly respect the man, but he’s not one of my favourite filmmakers. Though he has made a few of my favourite films. And it can’t be denied, no other movie director has had the impact he’s had, and so thoroughly changed the film industry, at least in the west. Steven Spielberg is often credited for inventing the blockbuster, and arguably no other movie director is as recognizable or iconic to the general public. Although he has his recurring themes, stylistic touches, and clichés, it’s sometimes forgotten how varied his movies have been. He’s worked in a number of different genres with distinct types of stories. He’s moulded North American pop culture like no other in his line of work, and because of all that, he demands attention. His movies de...

Queer themes in cinema have existed a lot longer than most people believe. Take Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Michael , a 1924 film about a gay couple, or Hitchock’s 1948  Rope , about a gay couple who committed a murder. In both these cases of course, they were still censored: the relationship in Michael  is never explicitly identified (though it’s clearly romantic), and in Rope  it’s all in subtext and allusion. In Hollywood, the attitude towards non-heterosexuality for decades was mostly to pretend it didn’t exist. The Hays Code restricted any references to homosexuality, used transsexuality and transvestitism only as a joke, and ensured that adaptations of works with LGBTQ themes or characters were sufficiently sanitized for films. This impacted the film noir genre especially, with movies like  The Maltese Falcon  and The Big Sleep  changing their gay characters (though in the case of the former, there’s still plenty of innuendo, including the use of ...