While establishing himself as a visual powerhouse with films like 300 and Watchmen, Zack Snyder has always tip-toed the line between live-action and digital animation. In those raw, CGI-heavy films, Snyder showed an affinity to treat his movies like a canvas – a world to be painted instead of captured. With his latest effort, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, Snyder is able to bring the best of his visual effects sensibilities into the presence of Animal Logic, the animation studio behind Happy Feet.
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Review: ‘Inception’
While other films of Nolan’s such as Memento and The Prestige also featured winding plots curving through a wilderness of ideas, would he be able to pull it off on Inception, a film that seeks to completely upend what we can perceive as tangible and objective?
Quick Thoughts on ‘Inception’
Yesterday, I jumped at the chance to see Inception, Christopher Nolan’s latest film, in IMAX and was blown away. I’m going again to see it this weekend and will post a full review then when my brain has a chance to process it all. For now, here a few quick SPOILER FREE thoughts.
A Seat in the 4-D Immersion Theater for “Planet Earth”
The National Aquarium in Baltimore has upgraded it’s facilities to provide a new “immersion theater” for it’s customers. I was there a few weekends ago to give it a try, luckily without any cameras ruining the film, and was able to experience a montage of “Planet Earth” best-of moments.
Review: ‘Toy Story 3’
I grew up with the Toy Story films and was hesitant to get too excited at the prospect of the third installment – the last one in the series. These films meant a lot to me, so it took some time to let this third film marinade and cook before I wrote this spoiler-free, completely biased review.
The French New Wave: A Cinematic Revolution
The French new wave gave birth to such ideas as “la politique des auteur,” jump cuts and the unimportance of linear structure, if only to name a few. What the French new wave gave, most importantly, was a radical sense of change in cinema that would trickle throughout the world.
Fight Club as a Film and Novel: A Copy of A Copy of A Copy
In a few sentences, I’m going to break the first rule. In actuality, I’m going to break the first two. But it’s hard not to. It’s even harder to believe that it has been 10 full years since the release of David Fincher’s Fight Club and 13 years since Chuck Palahniuk’s novel on which it was based.
Lightsabers, Replicants and Outer Space: A Look into Science Fiction Film
For each movie that could be pointed to as science fiction could also be examined as a drama, an adventure, a comedy, a noir, a horror film, and the list goes on. So, while most certainly nobody would deny that science fiction deserves its own catalog of films and its recognition in the history of film, it could be posited that instead science fiction is a conglomerate of all genres and that there are certain aspects that serve to convince a viewer to deem the film “sci-fi.”
Pat Graves: A Digital Portrait (Video)
I’ve featured Pat in much of my own work, specifically about Ghosts of Pluto, or as they are now known, Wings of Apollo. Pat has been an invaluable resource and subject for me in my projects, so when he approached me to help him make a “digital portrait,” it was easy to say yes.
Doppelganger Brings Home Two Awards
The short film Colin Rogers and I made, Doppelganger, was recently accepted into the local film festival for Virginia Tech students and Blacksburg residents.