art

Artistic, musical, creative, and entertaining topics of art about all things geek.

Why we no longer need superheroes
As you watch the new series of Amazon’s darkly comic superhero drama The Boys, you are compelled to reflect on what it means to be a hero and what, if any, meaning it has these days. In The Boys, which is adapted from the mid-2000s comic book series of the same name, the ‘supes’ (heroes with superpowers, all twisted derivatives of classic figures like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, but by other names), far from being shining examples of nobility and courage, are mainly power-drunk self-regarding sociopaths. The ‘boys’ of the title are a gang of weakly human vigilantes who skulk around in the shadows trying to assassinate them.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks
Mulan review: Live-action remake is ‘humourless and sombre’
Disney’s Mulan is a masterpiece: entertaining, sparklingly funny, striking in its use of artistic angles and imagery, and bold in its feminism and its positive representation of Asian characters. But that’s enough about the cartoon that came out in 1998. Let’s move on to the live-action remake, which is in the unenviable position of being compared to its splendid predecessor. What’s more, this Mulan is being released after months of waiting – the original release date was March – and can be seen for a hefty extra charge on Disney’s new streaming platform, Disney+. It is also the most expensive film ever to have a female director, the first Disney film to have an entirely Asian and Asian-American cast, and the first of Disney’s live-action remakes to have a PG-13 rating in the US. The pressure is on for Mulan to be a staggering success, so I should say right away that, well, it isn’t. Niki Caro’s film is a well-constructed family-friendly wuxia drama, with bright colours, grand scenery, and commendable themes. But it’s best enjoyed if you’re expecting a solid tween movie rather than a monumental cinematic landmark.
By Mejra3 years ago in Geeks
La Haine and the truly great screen rebels
When La Haine premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995, it made an immediate impact. A searing study of working-class Parisian youth living in the city’s housing projects, it earned rave reviews, with Variety calling it “an extremely intelligent take on an idiotic reality” and the then 27-year-old Mathieu Kassovitz winning Best Director for what was only his second film.
By Mejra3 years ago in Geeks
Waterworld at 25: Reappraising cinema’s biggest flop
When Waterworld splashed into US cinemas in July 1995, it did so with a belly-flop. Emphasis very much on the word flop. By the time Waterworld had arrived in the UK just two weeks later, its status as the most expensive film ever made at the time, its well-publicised production problems, average-to-negative reviews, and comparatively poor domestic box office performance had all combined to leave it dead in the water.
By Mejra3 years ago in Geeks
A ‘lovely, elegant, funny little film’
The Bill Murray we know today has an image – droll, wise, sensitive – that was cemented by his role as a deadpan, world-weary actor in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. It was a breakthrough for Coppola and positioned Murray as a serious actor as well as a brilliant comedian. Seventeen years on, he is the shining centre of On the Rocks, Coppola’s lovely, elegant, funny little film with a throwaway plot.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
How teen movies became hooked on classic literature
It’s been 10 years since the celebrated teen comedy Easy A was released in cinemas. A knowing riff on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s seminal 19th-Century novel The Scarlet Letter, it translated its tragic tale of public shaming into an incongruously peppy 21st-Century high school comedy, with Emma Stone as Olive, a teen who, like Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne, finds herself branded a harlot by her intolerant peers – but unlike Prynne, decides to lean into the persona.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks
Small Axe: ‘The most exhilarating director working today’
t’s rare when a political film can make you want to get up and dance, but that happens over and over in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series. These five standalone films are connected only by a broad subject, the West Indian community in the UK from the 1960s to the 1980s, and by McQueen’s uncommon artistry. Most are fact-based recent histories, full of social commentary about racial justice more relevant now than ever. And as few movies do, they take us viscerally into the action, into the middle of dance parties, street protests and the lives of ordinary but memorable people. They draw on McQueen’s strengths, from his beginnings as a visual artist, to making films of unblinking realism including Hunger and 12 Years a Slave. With Small Axe, he stands as the most exhilarating director working today.
By Mejra3 years ago in Geeks
Pixar’s Soul is ‘a gorgeous muddle’
These days, Pixar is no longer synonymous with the finest in American animation; other studios turn out more entertaining and more technically impressive cartoons on a regular basis. But when it comes to mind-expanding concepts and existential enquiries, Pixar is still in a league of its own. Competitors may content themselves with rebooting The Addams Family or Scooby Doo. Pixar examines emotion (Inside Out), creativity (Ratatouille) and play (Toy Story). More often than not, its films are concerned with how we can lead meaningful lives – but their latest cartoon is the first to make that philosophical theme explicit. Directed by Pete Docter, and co-directed and co-written by Kemp Powers, Soul ponders nothing less than the purpose of existence itself. It isn’t as profound as it was clearly intended to be, and its breezy depiction of bustling city life can’t help but feel anachronistic in the middle of a pandemic. But still, which other studio would dare to attempt what Soul is going for?
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
How Nashville captured the turbulence of 1970s America
Nashville, Tennessee is a storied city. It’s home to the Grand Ole Opry, the major ‘you’ve made it, kid’ live venue for country stars, and is widely thought of as the major incubator of country music in the United States. It was 45 years ago when Robert Altman and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury cast their eye on the city as a backdrop to their 1975 film of the same name. Within an expansive near three-hour running time, they combined a realistic – if heightened – vision of the country music capital with their thoughts on a turbulent political era in the US, sewing their impressions of the star-spangled, hairsprayed, patriotic heartland into a ragged tapestry, and one that was beginning to fray at its edges.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks
Rebecca review: ‘A pallid adaptation’
Daphne du Maurier wrote the novel Rebecca inspired by jealousy and insecurity, but it all turned out great in the end. Several years before, she had discovered letters to her husband from his beautiful former fiancée, who had taken her own life. How could she compete with a ghost? Du Maurier channelled that anxiety into her 1938 bestseller about a mousy young woman, a never-named narrator who marries Maxim de Winter. His impossibly glamourous first wife, Rebecca, had died in an unexplained shipwreck. The second Mrs de Winter becomes the ill-prepared mistress of Maxim’s great estate of Manderley, where her timidity is no match for the villainous housekeeper Mrs Danvers or the lingering spectre of Rebecca. The Gothic plot is enough to make the novel work, but the themes of self-doubt and a marriage fraught with secrets are what make it endure, and such a rich source for adaptation.
By Mejra3 years ago in Geeks
African Apocalypse: The real ‘heart of darkness’
In a year that has sharpened the focus on how Britain’s Imperialist legacy is remembered, the arrival of African Apocalypse seems rather prescient. The documentary – fronted by British-Nigerian poet-activist Femi Nylander and directed by Rob Lemkin – is a nonfiction retelling of the real-life barbarity inflicted on the people of Niger, in West Africa, by a French army captain called Paul Voulet. Taking cues from Joseph Conrad’s classic novella Heart of Darkness, Nylander travelled to the African country to retrace Voulet’s steps for the film and give voice to those still living with the collateral damage of his campaign.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom review: ‘Chadwick Boseman soars’
When Chadwick Boseman first appears on screen in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, it feels like a stab in the heart. Boseman’s death in August from colon cancer at the age of 43 still seems that shocking. It’s a sign of his artistry that before long we can put that real-life tragedy aside and see him as Levee, the troubled young musician at the centre of this exciting, trenchant film version of the August Wilson play.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks