Meet the Author - Rory Dean
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Blog Catalog Sites
Above the Line: Practical Movie Reviews- Some Safety Glass Distance (2013) May 11, 2013Writing is in my blood, it makes me feel connected to an often overwhelming sense of disconnectedness. Continue reading →rorydean
- Argo (2012) April 6, 2013So "Argo" should be on your list of movies to watch if you've missed it up to now. Be advised that the thrills come in bite-fulls and the story is much more about an ensemble cast than any one particular player. This has double feature written all over it. Pick up a couple of other movies while you're at it and if all goes South in a hurr […]rorydean
- 629 March 30, 2013This filmic is a multi-layered visual experience that takes place not in the dream-world but along the road that surrounds it. Continue reading →bleuravyn
- I Melt With You (2011) March 1, 2013“I Melt With You” feels like the mid-life rights of passage you've heard about or are living, the runway that many men land and take off from. Gathered for many drinks with the best friends of their lives quickly becomes a dangerous Bacchanalia of doomed ritualizing, darkly lit and disturbing yet familiar to anyone who has ever fallen off the beaten pat […]rorydean
- Female Directors Redux February 27, 2013Reblogged from Above the Line: Female Directors Redux - Women in Film in Hollywood and beyond After reviewing my original list "Female Directors - Above and Beyond a Call to Duty" and discussing female filmmakers with a variety of film aficionados, … Continue reading →rorydean
- Some Safety Glass Distance (2013) May 11, 2013
Monthly Archives: May 2011
All Good Things (2010)
All Good things meanders far too long on the mundane, struggles to elevate ordinary and loses track of the role of engaging characters with redemptive pursuits. Further to that point, the story stumble-steps like snapshots, like memory without the benefit of caring about abrupt beginnings or endings; the film seems to stop so quickly that it too shutters without so much as a suggestion of finality. Continue reading
Somewhere (2010)
Somewhere, sadly goes nowhere as Sofia Coppola loses all credibility in this abandonment of the sense and sensibilities that have infused her previous films with the mot dur jour reminiscent in her father’s early career. Reviews are mixed, reviewers either … Continue reading
Funny People (2009)
Funny People gets in its own way of making us laugh and giving us a reason to care about the men and women who deliver the jokes. Mortality is a risky subject for any movie but when seriousness takes a back seat to cheap jokes and lackluster performances it is difficult to get the point, laugh, and relate. Continue reading
Babel (2006)
If Babel is a story about communication and the distance between people, cultures and behavior it should have worked harder at conveying this than suggesting audiences do the work instead. Foreign films often force us to make choices that we are not used to or familiar with and this can be rewarding in and of itself. Babel blurs this line but instead of expanding on the idea with an effort to challenge domestic and international sensibilities, it loses momentum with the result more akin to mixing water and oil – one wins out for a little while before the other returns to start the whole process over again. Continue reading
