If you make movies for adults, then you have to talk careers. Yes, there’s love, and situation comedy as you get older, but most of adult life is spent at work. A career is when your work matters to you. The director Michael Mann sees anything outside of a career as superfluous. That’s why he makes so many cops ’n robbers movies, because both livings exclude all else. Mann’s protagonists are men the way cowboys were men; their work defines them. Women have too many feelings for Michael Mann. If a stay-at-home mom was his subject, she’d handle her baby like a machine gun. His latest, Public Enemies, is a tale of two workaholics trying to best each other. They’d both choose death over a desk job.
Public Enemies – A Review
July 6, 2009
Leave a Comment » | 
American Film, Film Reviews | Tagged: Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, Michael Mann, scary-focused | 
Permalink
Posted by jtatham
Terminator Salvation – A Review
June 8, 2009We wouldn’t win a war against the machines. Most of us struggle with spreadsheets. Humans, at a bare minimum, need: food, shelter, sex and shoes. Machines just need a plug. And therein lies my basic problem with Terminator Salvation; no matter how sexy the human resistance might be, you’d have to bet on the robots. Like the Terminator franchise, they can multiply ad-infinitum. They don’t need motivation to fight, or an explanation as to why they do things. I picture the resistance: bursting for a piss, unsure whose side the lights are on in the toilets. That’s not a battle I’d want to fight.
Leave a Comment » | American Film, Film Reviews | Tagged: Christian Bale, James Cameron, Moon Bloodgood, Sam Worthington | Permalink
Posted by jtatham
The Dark Knight – A Review
July 26, 2008Come back Adam West, all is forgiven! Though I doubt TV’s Batman would find much of a home in the new, brutal, unrelenting Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Perhaps he could be beaten to death as a pretext for another set-piece, but beyond that – No. The Dark Knight is not a movie that would welcome West, Burt Ward, or anything fun. I know I’m going against the grain – against doctrine – to say I didn’t like The Dark Knight, but this movie is to summer what a chain-saw is to a daisy-chain. The idea that its primary audience is children and young teenagers (it carries a PG-13 rating in America and a 12 rating in Britain) is pretty bloody depressing.
3 Comments | American Film, Film Reviews | Tagged: Aaron Eckhart, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal | Permalink
Posted by jtatham
