Reviews of the Bosch

Last week I went on an adventure with the Doctor. I’m not at liberty to divulge what it was (but we totally fought Daleks in it!), however at the end of it she decided to show me what’s to come in the year 2019. I didn’t know at the time whether this was a reward for my participation in her saving the day or a punishment. It was a punishment. So allow me to present a peak behind the curtain at the major news stories and events that lie before the world in 2019. January: The U.S. government remains shut down for most of the month over Donald Trump’s Border Wall. Trump only relents when he realizes its much easier to kill Mexicans when there isn’t a slab of concrete in the way. February: The induction of a Best Popular Picture category at the Academy Awards results in exactly zero higher ratings than the previous year. The winner in that category being The Nutcracker and the Four Realms  causes some to suspect the real progenitor of that idea. March: In a last minute B...

       In December 2011, Steven Spielberg had, for the first time in his career, two movies out simultaneously, opening within a week of each other. He’d had two movies released in the same year previously in 1989, 1993, 2002, and 2005, but in all those cases one came out in the summer, the other in winter. Both The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse were late December premieres. And while Tintin was the more ambitious of the two, the one that conventionally ought to have been a summer movie, War Horse was the one Spielberg had high expectations for.         War Horse is based on a book by Michael Morpurgo about the journey and experience of an English country horse through the First World War, though it’s better known through its popular 2007 West End stage adaptation by Nick Stafford. It was in this context that first Kathleen Kennedy and then Spielberg encountered the story and became determined to make it into a movie. Working off a ...

Queen Anne sat on the throne of England from 1702 to 1714. Her reign most notably saw the Acts of Union that formed Great Britain and the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. She suffered numerous miscarriages before her husband died in 1708 and six years later she passed with no direct heir, resulting in the end of the House of Stuart and the succession of the German Hanoverians. She is not one of the popular British monarchs but is an important figure nonetheless and her life was characterized by a lot of sadness and tragedy. It’s this that Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos wanted to explore in his dark comedy The Favourite , set near the end of Anne’s reign and depicting the rivalry between two women vying to be her court favourite with all the political power it entails. Depressed and in poor health due to gout, Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) leaves the running of the kingdom more or less in the hands of her court favourite advisor and confidante Sarah Churchill Lady Marlb...

I’ve consciously avoided seeing most of the Transformers movies. I was never much a fan of the franchise, and Michael Bay, despite being a more interesting filmmaker than he’s given credit for (as Lindsay Ellis  and Patrick Willems  have expertly demonstrated), generally doesn’t make very good movies. But Bumblebee , a spin-off prequel to the series, piqued my interest for three reasons. First, it’s directed by Travis Knight, president of of the stop-motion animation studio Laika and director of its strongest feature, Kubo and the Two Strings . Second, though it boasts a script by the talented Christina Hodson, it underwent significant (though uncredited) rewrites by Kelly Fremon Craig, the writer-director of The Edge of Seventeen , which alongside Kubo  was one of the best movies of 2016. And third, that films’ star Hailee Steinfeld is the human lead of the story, and she’s one of the most talented actresses of her generation. All of this boded unusually well for ...

After nine years, Jason Momoa has returned to Atlantis. If you’re not a comics reader you’re probably most familiar with Aquaman as a punchline. The DC hero of the sea has often been mocked for what’s seen as a niche superpower, something very limited and tame. Which is ironic considering his oldest analogue, Poseidon, was regarded as one of the three most important of the Greek gods, the pantheon often cited as the model for the Justice League. Having power over the seas is not a small thing, but still Aquaman’s unique domain poses a real challenge for a film adaptation. And how do you make that kind of character interesting? Where do you go for his story. Well the answer lies right in his name. Not Aquaman. Arthur. Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) is the son of Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), Queen of the underwater civilization of Atlantis, and Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison), a human lighthouse keeper whom she fell in love with. Refusing to associate with Atlantis after his mother was ...

       Looking at it today, The Bishop’s Wife can’t help but feel like an imitator of It’s a Wonderful Life . It came out just a year after Frank Capra’s seminal classic, and the similar subject matter of an angel coming to do good in one mans’ life feels constantly in the shadow of that greater movie’s use of the same idea. However it should be remembered that It’s a Wonderful Life was not an instant classic –it was in fact one of Capra’s most disappointing films, and The Bishop’s Wife was based on a novel by Robert Nathan. The idea of angels interfering in mens’ lives around Christmas it seems was merely a popular idea in the 1940s.         The Bishop’s Wife itself wasn’t much of a success either, at least not until producer Samuel Goldwyn added Cary Grant’s name to the very title by dubbing it “Cary and the Bishop’s Wife”, a marketing move so stupid and condescending, that it absolutely worked on the American public of 1947. The issue seem...

Vincent van Gogh has earned a reputation as simultaneously the most beloved (arguably) and most tragic figure in art history. And as such, he’s one of the most common artists to be depicted in media. He’s been the subject of a Golden Age Hollywood Kirk Douglas movie, a great Doctor Who episode, and an exquisite and revolutionary animated film just last year called Loving Vincent , composed entirely through paintings done in his style. At Eternity’s Gate  is the latest attempt to tell his story, and more importantly, decipher his impression of the world, coloured and distorted through mental illness and depression. Director Julian Schnabel chose to do this by examining his life from the inside out, showing the audience as best as can be presumed, the way he saw the world. Financially supported by his brother Theo (Rupert Friend), Vincent van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) sets up in the town of Arles in the south of France to paint. Passionate for his art, he spends his days painting la...

Miles Morales was created in 2011 by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli as a way of bringing some diversity to Marvel Comics and to rejuvenate the Spider-Man hero. The Black Hispanic teenager who picks up the mantel of Spider-Man was received warmly by many, including the late Stan Lee; though some reacted to his addition to the Marvel canon with disapproval, to put it lightly. They cried the usual complaints that hold no water about political correctness without understanding what this meant for the kids who actually read  Spider-Man  comics, kids from backgrounds unlike theirs who recognize and resonate with this Spider-Man in a way they never did with Peter Parker. Diversity matters in the stories and characters we consume, and no movie illustrates that quite as well as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse , appropriately enough, Miles Morales’ first movie. Produced by The Lego Movie ’s Phil Lord and Chris Miller,  Into the Spider-Verse  seemed like a stra...

Written and directed, shot and edited by the man who’s upbringing it’s loosely based around, Roma  is the textbook definition of a personal project. And yet, it’s in no way self-indulgent. The filmmaker stretching his auteur sensibilities here is Alfonso Cuarón, one of the greatest directors of the past twenty years, best known for his Oscar-winning Gravity , the one truly great Harry Potter  film, and his dystopian masterpiece Children of Men . Yet Roma  is his first Mexican film since his brilliant 2001 coming-of-age story Y Tu Mama Tambien . And what prompted his return was to tell a story, certainly with biographical elements, but not about himself or a thinly-veiled surrogate, the likes of which you’d see from Truffault or Fellini (who also made a movie called Roma ). Roma  is rather a touching love letter to his childhood nanny. Set between 1970 and 1971, it’s the story of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the live-in housekeeper for a family in the Roma neighbou...

       Based on the classic Belgian comic book adventure series by Herge, The Adventures of Tintin is a very unusual movie for Spielberg in a number of ways. It’s his first and thus far only animated film (yeah, it’s motion capture, but it’s still animated). Technically it’s his first comic book movie as well. And it’s also his first real collaboration with another director other than George Lucas. Peter Jackson was the producer of the film and was arguably just as involved in its production as Spielberg with the idea being that Spielberg would direct this film while Jackson would direct its sequel; a sequel which according to Jackson and Spielberg is still in the works, with Jackson confirming so as recently as last month.         And with a script written by, at various stages, Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, and Joe Cornish, this had the makings of a film unlike any other. What happens when the people behind Indiana Jones , The Lord of...