art
Artistic, musical, creative, and entertaining topics of art about all things geek.
How Clueless transformed the movie makeover
If there is one thing that Cher Horowitz, the heroine of 1990s teen-movie classic Clueless, loves, it’s a makeover. It’s her “main thrill in life,” her best friend Dionne points out, “It gives her a sense of control in a world full of chaos”. But as Cher plans the transformation of new friend Tai from grungy misfit to Beverly Hills princess, she is blissfully unaware that the person getting the real makeover in this movie is herself.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
Grease 2: The flop that became a surprise hit
When Grease was released in cinemas in 1978, its producers were all too aware of the power of a sequel. Although the musical would go on to become the highest grossing film of that year, it was beaten at the box office in its opening weekend by Jaws 2 – the follow-up to Spielberg’s hugely successful shark-attack horror. By then, film-goers were growing accustomed to successful movies spawning sequels, and Hollywood was relying on them to hook in an audience already sold on the original. A few years earlier, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II – which won the Academy Award for best picture – suggested that sequels could even improve on the original.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks
Tenet review: ‘It feels like several blockbusters combined’
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is the first new Hollywood blockbuster to be released in cinemas in almost six months. The good news is that it is so sprawling, so epic, so crammed with exotic locations, snazzy costumes, shoot-outs and explosions that you get six months’ worth of big-screen entertainment in two and a half hours. Clearly, it never occurred to Nolan to tone it down every now and then. Having directed Inception, Interstellar, and the Dark Knight trilogy, he’s not someone you associate with quiet, intimate indie dramas. But it’s still startling to see a film so over-the-top that when one character asks if the villains are planning a nuclear holocaust, another character snaps: “No. Something worse.”
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
The Wanderers: The forgotten great coming-of-age film
ou know the sort of film, don’t you? Imbued with nostalgia, full of teenage boys at burger joints and diners and in wide-finned cars, donning white T-shirts and pomaded hair. The plots tend to revolve around the guys getting into mischief of some kind, chasing girls, bickering, and forming deep friendships; typically, these films are set against a joyous soundtrack of doo-wop and rock’n’roll oldies.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks
Five stars for I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Imagine if Meet the Parents was remade by the writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and by the writer-director of Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa, and you’ll have a fair idea of what to expect from Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. To put it another way, you won’t really know what to expect at all, because Kaufman’s films are always weirder, gloomier, and more unsettling than you might assume, and his latest, adapted from a novel by Iain Reid, could be the weirdest of them all.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
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
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
