Tag: movies
Sex and the movies: The age of anticlimax
We need better sex scenes in the movies. You may laugh. Even snicker. But it’s a problem. Sex scenes today, in general, stink. True, this is a broad statement, and there are many exceptions. I wonder, though, if filmmakers in the not-so-new millennia often view such content as obligatory, like a car chase in an…
Cinema and combat: Is filming a great battle scene a lost art?
Is filming a great battle scene a lost art? I pondered this question recently after watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) in all its lengthy, kill-the-orcs-in-creative-ways glory. Director Peter Jackson certainly knows how to helm an epic contest—the thrilling defense of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) is…
Shakespeare’s history plays: Precursor to the film franchise?
Ahh, the film franchise. A popular film with interesting characters and a decent premise soon spawns a sequel, then becomes a trilogy, and so on, until it becomes unprofitable, unpopular, or both. If the franchise is based on a book series, every effort will be made to keep the money factory running as long as…
Cinema and ‘The Sopranos’: When two forms collide
Television, and the experience of watching television, have undergone a radical shift in the twenty-first century. While the internet promises (or threatens) to make the experience of watching broadcasted TV entirely redundant, as well as altering the viewing experience irrecoverably from that of a weekly drip feed to that of a televisual binge, the quality…
Method in acting and science: Why there is no such thing
Growing up in China, with the state television often showing boring programs, I was hooked to our cherished VCR and movies. My favorite actors growing up were Al Pacino and Robert De Niro (no surprises there). It was only later on that I discovered while doing my PhD in the Netherlands, that actors like Pacino…