tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45018350978237001552026-02-12T01:30:49.059-06:00Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.comBlogger888125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-5152511947653352562012-01-10T16:04:00.001-06:002012-01-10T16:09:39.821-06:00

Everybody has to do one of these lists, right? I've been thinking about it for a while and decided it was time to just throw it out there.  - Really my only rule when compiling this list was making sure that I had actually seen every movie that I put on the list. Therefore, I didn't go trolling around Youtube just watching credits sequences. These are films that I have a great appreciation

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-57796780562326941562012-01-09T15:13:00.003-06:002012-01-09T16:27:20.822-06:00

Truthfully, 2011 was a year that produced very few great films, even fewer good ones and a surplus of decent ones. Thus, making a Top 20 list was more a reach than in year's past, yet like every year, the great films are there - you just have to look for them.   - #20--"DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME"Directed by Tsui Hark-Tusi Hark's fantastical-historical Chinese

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-46895079535418758382012-01-09T09:47:00.001-06:002012-01-09T09:48:18.835-06:00

5. Kirsten Dunst, "Melancholia" - Working for the first time with Danish provacateur Lars von Trier, Dunst, with a glazed-over despondency, is the perfect conduit for von Trier's mediation on depression and the oncoming apocalypse. It's not until the film's second half, however that she really makes her mark with a few deadpan zingers about the futility of it all. "The earth is evil. Nobody will

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-7870370992821305342012-01-03T10:39:00.003-06:002012-01-03T15:56:18.404-06:00

5. Brad Pitt, "The Tree of Life" - As a temperamental, disciplinary father trying to raise his family in rural Texas in the 1950's, Brad Pitt's performance in many ways provides the backbone to Malick's odyssey on family, loss and creation. Both disquietingly menacing and vulnerable, Pitt fleshes out his capricious father figure with but a glance or a grimace.  - 4. Gary Oldman, "Tinker

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-32105128945572156982011-12-30T21:26:00.000-06:002011-12-30T21:26:22.187-06:00

I've pretty much exhausted what 2011 has to offer and with a viewing of Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" some time this weekend, that will make it 113 films seen this year - some bad, some good, but as we all know, mostly bad.  However, out of those mostly bad films I sat through this year, these ten were surely the worst. So before I get to the good stuff (Top 10 list coming later this

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-41419040603866921362011-12-25T06:26:00.001-06:002011-12-25T06:28:34.388-06:00

Without question, David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a much more accomplished, taut and ornamented adaptation of Steig Larsson's runaway bestseller than that wretched Swedish-language adaptation of a few years ago.  - Anyone claiming differently is either someone I don't like or cinematically inept. Fincher's film is carefully composed, meticulously arranged and accented,

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-28346472911218925742011-12-20T21:57:00.000-06:002011-12-20T21:57:46.347-06:00

The production design on Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows", from the costume department to the art direction to Hans Zimmer's now-familiar score is, I must say, first-rate stuff - eye-popping, transportive, even soothing in its period detail, the sawdust in the air, the splintering of wood, the slush of mud in the street, etc. - But beyond the film's rapturous

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-13020808473167040852011-12-20T20:18:00.000-06:002011-12-20T20:18:18.089-06:00

Brad Bird's "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" is such a feat of high-tech globe-trotting spy-movie extravagance that it takes nearly the majority of the film's running time to reveal itself as a frivolous, hoary nuclear arms showdown. (Among the film's drawbacks, convolution is certainly not among them.)  - Not that most - included myself - are complaining, because the kind of propulsive,

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-72406460563800313012011-12-16T19:44:00.000-06:002011-12-16T19:44:41.152-06:00

I'm not entirely sold on Steve McQueen's "Shame", but this immaculately cold and detached portrait of a Manhattan sex addict is a real work of art. Every frame of this film appears calculated and carefully composed, as if every second was a still photograph hanging in a gallery, each contributing to a collective theme.  - I'm not sure that McQueen isn't exaggerating considerably at times

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-27181202751334773882011-12-14T16:17:00.001-06:002011-12-14T16:17:25.558-06:00

I look forward to this list every year. The Playlist, a movie blog with a deceiving background as a music-in-movies specialty, released their list of the best scores/soundtracks of the year. Some are quite unsurprising ("Drive", "Attack the Block"), while others are delightful, less-than-expected inclusions. - I personally don't think it gets much better than Cliff Martinez's stunning work

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-91352239204244031572011-12-10T21:35:00.002-06:002011-12-10T21:35:28.631-06:00

Seeing Steve McQueen's "Shame" tomorrow afternoon (thank you, NFL, for scheduling no games of consequence until Sunday night...), so certainly looking forward to that. With school pretty much wrapped up, it's time to play catch-up, so I'll be checking out stuff like "Beginners", "The Future", "Another Earth" and some other titles I missed this summer. - Speaking of which, for some reason, I

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-7718502796513860762011-12-09T12:40:00.000-06:002011-12-09T12:40:40.909-06:00

For me, there's no more enduring performance this year than John Boyega's in "Attack the Block," Joe Cornish's slick, propulsive small-scale action-comedy hybrid which rose through the ranks of genre festivals to become one of the more noteworthy debuts of the year.  - Boyega plays Moses, the leader of a young, petty street gang in an urban UK neighborhood, who rises above his more

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-47259914931828853042011-12-09T12:18:00.000-06:002011-12-09T12:18:23.018-06:00

Tom McCarthy's "Win Win", which I just caught up with last week, is a truthful, affectionate family drama, one that's easy to snuggle up to and sympathize with, while still staying true to its self and never compromising its characters in a way that makes them dismissible.  - With this film, McCarthy has further proven to be a practiced hand at portraying these kinds of honest, moving

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-23828919057243804372011-12-09T11:39:00.000-06:002011-12-09T11:39:56.507-06:00

On the topic of Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," I consider myself - from the moment I left the theater until now - a fan. I love that this film (which is obviously breathtaking to witness and a strong counter-argument for the tasteful implementation of 3D) is such a strange detour for one of America's greatest enduring cinema icons, yet once you take it in, it feels like the product of no one else.&

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-78692832763067314162011-12-07T13:28:00.001-06:002011-12-07T13:40:17.921-06:00

In what could be perceived as the conclusion (or perhaps bridge) to Danish provocateur Lars von Trier's recent explorations of guilt and depression - beginning with 2009's much ballyhooed horror film "Antichrist" - the director's latest film, the apocalyptically beautiful "Melancholia" is as relatively restrained as a film about the end of the world (and coming from the

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-24896488242179369432011-12-05T11:28:00.000-06:002011-12-05T11:28:40.948-06:00

In-between spare moments where I'm not thinking about Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" (more on that later, by the way), I've managed to sit down to watch all manner of (mostly) terrible films at home, plus a few that weren't too painful and some that were quite good, honestly. - Top of mind, Marcus Nispel's "Conan the Barbarian" is an over-lit, over-blown spectacle that (in what is becoming an all

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-13437942601728054812011-12-02T21:04:00.000-06:002011-12-02T21:04:04.709-06:00

"The Muppets" is simply a joyous reunion tour, a get-the-gang-back-together send-off like no other, and I say this as someone with almost no prior exposure to the original TV show and subsequent movie spin-offs throughout the 80 and 90's.  - Jason Segel, who stars in and co-writes along with Nicolas Stoller, brings his doughy sarcasm both behind and in-front of the camera, managing to

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-25133249730848563542011-11-26T21:28:00.003-06:002011-11-26T21:56:11.534-06:00

I've been furiously trying to put together my final projects for school, spend time with the family and still keep up with the latest movies, so consider this a what-have-I-seen-lately purge, of sorts. - First up for Thanksgiving week was Alexander Payne's "The Descendants", a nearly de facto Oscar contender far before anybody had the chance to see it, what with its behind-of and

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-16255175768892823622011-11-15T07:16:00.000-06:002011-11-15T07:16:08.601-06:00

When 81 year-old (and presently overactive) Clint Eastwood was announced to take on a biopic on the founder and long-time director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one would not have predicted a film that not only examines Hoover's precarious, reckless and secretive methods, but his (mostly speculative) life as a closeted homosexual.  - Although seeing as the script (a largely

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-13338634241074009852011-11-11T10:48:00.000-06:002011-11-11T10:48:13.775-06:00

I'm not a particularly knowledgeable or dependable barometer on the canon of DreamWorks properties post-2001's "Shrek," but I can say that "Puss in Boots," the latest offspring of that film that so enchanted viewers a decade ago, is better than the last two sequels and I haven't even see them.  - Which isn't so much a gleeful rave of this feline spin-off, but rather a condemnation of

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-76223517585580915422011-11-11T08:30:00.000-06:002011-11-11T08:30:45.391-06:00

There's been so much news-feed garbage piling up about these two dueling "Snow White" projects that I'm not even sure I can separate the two, yet Rupert Sanders' "Snow White & the Huntsman" is the first out of the gate with a trailer. - - I have to say, at the very least, it doesn't look just all that dreadful, does it? I'm convinced the music is some sort of remix of Zach Hemsey's trailer

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-10822226797499289772011-11-11T08:05:00.001-06:002011-11-11T08:06:33.680-06:00

Brett Ratner's fortunately topical "Tower Heist" is, for its majority, a semi-flat, moderately engaging heist comedy that nevertheless never really takes off. That is, until Eddie Murphy shows up.  - The highly-skilled, highly-missed comedic actor, who disappeared into a vat of atrocious, doughy children's films for the last decade including "I Spy", "Daddy Day Care" and the abominable

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-84753958413474838372011-11-04T19:39:00.000-05:002011-11-04T19:39:33.043-05:00

In what I hope becomes a weekly series here at The Ludovico Technique, I'm hoping to mirror (or rather copy) the excellent weekly podcast out of Chicago, Filmspotting, and doing my own Top 5 list in accordance to their designated topic.  - Last week it was Top 5 Director Departures (in response to Kevin Smith directing "Red State") and thus, I'm here to provide my own list of five of the

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-68511851109367501192011-10-31T09:25:00.000-05:002011-10-31T09:25:17.726-05:00

As a devout loyalist to John Carpenter's 1982 version of "The Thing," I approached this prequel/remake with an admittedly great deal of skepticism, but I feel confident in saying, even with my biased outlook, that Matthijs van Heijningen's update just isn't very good. - Showing us what happened at the Norweigan camp which found and accidentally let loose the imitative title creature, the film is

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501835097823700155.post-58511087990755367652011-10-30T11:12:00.000-05:002011-10-30T11:12:23.393-05:00

An oncoming storm plagues the visions of a young husband and father in Jeff Nichols' sophomore effort, "Take Shelter," a keen, deeply psychological portrait of a man either at wit's end or God's beckoning.  - Michael Shannon plays said man, Curtis LaForche, a construction worker caring solely for his wife (Jessica Chastain) and their hearing-impaired daughter (Tova Stewart) in rural Ohio.

Chase Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969868987204703561noreply@blogger.com0