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
Tag Archives: dark knight
Dark Knight Rises (2012)
DKR is not the worst comic book movie or end to a trilogy in recent memory but the fact that it’s over might just be its greatest achievement. It is long-winded and cluttered with the usual crippling redundancies, overdone explanations leave little to the imagination or curtail simple discovery while story is relegated to a cardboard box stuffed with convoluted action sequences and the plodding melodrama of PG13 blah. I could spend an entire article on the ills of the MPAA and the PG13 rating system and the directors who have gotten drunk on the Kool-Aid. Continue reading
Posted in Movie I've Seen, Movie Makers & Shakers, Movies You Should or Should Not See, My Review of Their Review:, On DVD, philosophy and film, Rants & Raves, Speak-Freely
Tagged above the line, Arts, batman, batman begins, Belmont Park, christopher nolan, dark knight, dark knight rises, Elvis Presley, heath ledger, Nolan, practical movie reviews, rory dean, Tom Hardy, trilogy
3 Comments
Batman: America’s James Bond
Bond and Wayne are iconic figures that cross in and out of fantasy to reveal our secret desires and worst nightmares, the men who take charge to right all the wrongs in the world in exaggerated, often overblown and virtually incomprehensible ways that somehow manage to fuel our tampered down sensibilities with a pressure cooker release valve. It is this link to that which explodes in us everyday but must be wrestled to order, to the broken people and far away places we need to believe in that we can all come together in the form of supermen heroes that rescue without question and save us from ourselves. Continue reading
Posted in Essays on Film, Movie Makers & Shakers, On DVD, Online, philosophy and film, Rants & Raves, Speak-Freely
Tagged 007, above the line, america's james bond, batman, batman & Robin, bill finger, blockbusters, bob kane, Britain's batman, bruce wayne, burtons batman, christopher nolan, comic book adaptations, daniel craig, daniel craig olympics, dark knight, dark knight rises, dc comics, film criticism, film theory, gotham city, ian fleming, international man of mystery, james bond, license to kill, practical movie reviews, rory dean, schumacher, shaken not stirred martini, skyfall
2 Comments
Batman Begins (2005)
For all the facts and figures, agreements and dastardly deeds, for the accomplishments and tragedies forever linked with these films, Nolan’s revisionist dream for the universe of Batman is an impressive film all by itself, a solid beginning for the franchise that follows and like all blockbusters it has earned as much praise in the aggregators as notable criticism. If Nolan is anything he is Master and Commander of the Cinema of now, a modern movie maker building on a rich history of motion pictures and escapism with bigger films at every turn that thrill and disappoint, that enliven imaginations and simple pleasures, that are grand explorations but above all he entertains. Continue reading
Posted in Essays on Film, In Theaters Now!, Movie I've Seen, Movie Makers & Shakers, Movies You Should or Should Not See, On DVD
Tagged above the line, batman & Robin, batman begins, batman trilogy, blockbusters, bruce wayne, capped crusader, christian bale, christopher nolan, dark knight, dc comics, gotham city, joel schulmaker, liam neeson, master and commander of cinema, morgan freeman, origin films, practical movie reviews, reboost movies, rory dean, Warner Bros. Entertainment
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Christopher Nolan Master and Commander
In the darkness of Christopher Nolan lives a part of us struggling against insurmountable odds and dreams that don’t come true. In the person is a place we strive to find in ourselves so when Batman falls we all fall. It is there in that rise from utter ruin that we see him rise again like the title of the movie, to transform from individual Bat-“man” to Dark Knight of the many and he brings us along. He chooses grand over nuance, drives his points forward with all the subtlety of a bull in a china cabinet but somehow it always pays off. He’s larger than life and flesh and blood, magnificent and flawed and fans, followers, critics and everyday moviegoers seem set on loving him and fighting for him no matter what. Continue reading
Posted in Essays on Film, Movie Makers & Shakers, On DVD, Online, philosophy and film
Tagged aurora tragedy, auteur theory, batman begins, blockbusters, christian bale, christopher nolan, Colorado shootings, dark knight, escapist, fantasy, franchise films, practical movie reviews, rory dean, the joker
3 Comments
Inception (2010)
Despite popular opinion, Christopher Nolan didn’t invent the summer blockbuster any more than he was the first person to try peanut butter and chocolate in the same bite. All the pieces are there, big named stars and gun fire, ridiculous and unbelievable plot points that don’t just bump into one another but get lost like children in a field too enamored with the cornstalks to answer when mommy calls. Continue reading
Posted in In Theaters Now!, Movie I've Seen, Movie Makers & Shakers, Movies You Should or Should Not See, On DVD, Rants & Raves, Speak-Freely
Tagged above the line, batman begins, christopher nolan, Cillian Murphy, dark knight, dark knight rises, dream thieves, dreams, ellen page, franchises, inception, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lukas Haas, michael caine, movie reviews, movies about dreams, Pete Postlethwaite, rory dean, summer blockbuser, tom berenger, Tom Hardy, warner bros.
23 Comments
