Michael Nordine
David Fincher has made a career of turning pulp into prestige.
A reimagining of a remake, then—or maybe, to get into the spirit of a story about an alien intelligence hopping between hosts, it’s a kind of inhabitation—an attempt to mimic the textures of its source material so that fans and newcomers alike can’t even tell the difference.
Critical pans aside, Vanilla Sky was a financial success, something I’m willing to admit has more to do with the fact that it’s a star vehicle from the height of Cruise’s career than the fact that it’s far and away Crowe’s best, most ambitious film.
Writer-director-editor-star Evan Glodell’s debut film Bellflower starts in media res. We’re treated, within its first thirty seconds, to a fragmented blend of flipped cars, backwards footage, and slow motion.
Unlike Julia, Capote focuses more on its characters than the goings on surrounding them. In the former, characters get lost in the maelstrom of history; the actual murders that serve as the catalyst for Capote's book are of secondary importance to their eventual effect on the author.
Christopher Smith’s Black Death milks every bit of filth, cruelty, and unabashed grimness suggested by its title.
