Beyond Rangoon

There's something off about this film. It's like there are puzzle pieces that don't fit and aren't even from the same puzzle being shoved together without any effort to actually find some semblance of cohesion. It makes me wonder about the writing process of the film. The credited writers are Alex Lasker and Bill Rubenstein,…

Advertisement

Leo the Last

Yeah...no. Leo the Last is part of this subgenre of films that heavily uses metaphor and symbolism to try and explain, well, everything. Darren Aronofsky's mother! is a more modern example, and Lindsay Anderson's Britannia Hotel is another. Considering the presence of Marcello Mastroianni, regular star of Federico Fellini's films, I'd say that this is…

Scream VI

#4 in my ranking of the Scream franchise. This franchise simply will not let go of the idea that its rule breaking. It's not. It may not bend to every rule of the slasher genre, but it bends to every rule of the Scream franchise that have been established since the first film. That explicit…

Gentleman’s Agreement

This is not drama. It's really not. It's polemic with elements of drama inelegantly hanging over different parts here and there in an effort to make it look like drama, wearing a drama suit that doesn't fit. This is didacticism at its most forceful, obvious, one-sided, earnest, and well-meaning, taking a fight for a good…

Fritz the Cat

#5 in my ranking of Ralph Bakshi's filmography. Made after Ralph Bakshi had some stints animating some Saturday morning cartoon shows like Spider-Man and Mighty Mouse, he wanted to make something more uniquely his but was convinced by his producer, Steve Krantz, to pursue the rights to the R. Crumb comic Fritz the Cat to…