On Movie Reviews

Mike D'Angelo, screenwriter wannabe and movie critic be, has a blog. He hasn't written in it for six months or so. But he's written in it recently.

He wants to retool his blog to write notes about movies in bullet form, a la Powerpoint. This was a mini-epiphany. Mini because we live in a society that exaggerates everything to excess (worst. pain. ever.) until the uttering of such excesses is simply for grand humor.

The reason for the trumpet heralding moment?

I realize I wasn't cut out for movie critic-dom some time ago. I lack deep insight into film. I lack compelling writing skills. I lack grammatical acumen. However, I have some sense of what make a good review, and where my shortcomings are.

I find, after all this time, that I summarize the film, which is the lazy man's way to write reviews, and yet, shortly after watching a film, I feel compelled to summarize. So easy to do, don't you know.

But bullet points. Ah, just a few key ideas. Impressions. That's all I need.

So I'll give it a try.

Hmm, it looks like I was wrong about Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, part 1 of his two part movie describing the two sides of Iwo Jima. Perhaps I was too hasty concluding he'd be able to pull off the dual story line.

The next film I'm looking forward too is the retina burning Curse of the Golden Flower. Zhang Yimou has long abandoned his tales of historical drama for historical action. Hero begat House of Flying Daggers which has now begat Curse of the Golden Flower. Visually stunning, it's likely to be an old fashioned tale of double-cross and plotting, packed with plenty of wu-shu, wire-fu, kick ass, and colors that sear on the screen.

For now, that's all I need.