Babylon (2023) - Movie Review

Damien Chazelle might be the single most self-confident filmmaker working in Hollywood right now. No matter how idealistic (the grand romantic tones in La La Land), or familiar (the story of Apollo 11 in First Man), or just downright goofy (the colourful string of expletives in the script for Whiplash) his ideas get, there’s never an inkling that he’s meeting any of it halfway. And even when I find myself on the wrong side of some of those aspects, I’ve been unable to deny that there’s a certain infectious quality to how much conviction the man pours into each of his directorial efforts thus far. But his latest seems to be the ultimate test for that methodology, as we’ve gone from a film that would merely benefit from that much confidence behind the camera, to a film that outright requires it to work even slightly.

La La Land (2016) - Movie Review

The movie musical is dead. Or, at least, the original concept of the movie musical is dead. Starting out as a natural extension of film’s stylistic origins in theatre, it was full of big grins and bigger dance numbers about the ways of life and love. And then we started to get inventive with the format, using it less as a means of showing the fantastical nature of the musical and more to highlight it as a heavy contrast to the harshness of reality. Through this, we’ve gotten some proper quality musical films as Sweeney Todd, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Hedwig And The Angry Inch, Reefer Madness and a bunch of others that wouldn’t even be conceivable as viable musicals back in the old days. Now, as much as this evolution of the format has honestly worked out for the best all things considered, maybe a bit of revivalism could help keep everything in perspective. And thanks to rising star filmmaker Damian Chazelle, it seems that we have just that for today.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) - Movie Review