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: film theory
Tree of Life (2011)
Tree of Life is as exquisite a journey of celestial wanderings as it is burdened by terrestrial design, flawed in its pursuit of complexity, finally succumbing to a zealot’s dream of eternity. Terrence Malick suggests grandness is a vehicle for molecular time travel but fails to realize so much space is to specificity as forlorn expression is to hope and change, muted in silences, devoured by the empty, suggesting creatio ex nihilo (depth from air). Continue reading
Posted in Essays on art, Essays on Film, Movie I've Seen, Movie Makers & Shakers, Movies You Should or Should Not See, On DVD, philosophy and film
Tagged above the line, badlands, brad pitt, creatio ex nihilo, Emmanuel Lubezki, existentialism, film theory, Fox Searchlight, jessica chastain, poetic movie reviews, practical movie reviews, rory dean, Sean Penn, terrence malick, thin red line, tree of life, universe by design
13 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
Happy Birthday Above The Line
From the beginning I wanted this blog to be an extension of my creative writing, enlivened by my passion, pursuits and formal education in filmmaking. It would be the perfect opportunity for me to marry the perspectives of a film theorist and critic with that of an actual filmmaker. Continue reading
Posted in Essays on art, Essays on Film, Online, philosophy and film, Speak-Freely, Uncategorized
Tagged above the line, bay area movie reviews, film critic, film theory, filmmaker movie critic, movie blogs, movie reviews, once beautiful past, practical movie reviews, rory dean, san francisco filmmakers, writer directors
5 Comments
Birth of a Nation (1915) The Mighty Spectacle
Birth of a Nation (1915) turned ninety-five years old this past March. For many there is no celebration in that. For some there is pause, considerable consternation and ultimately a resounding sigh of sadness that such an undeniably momentous event in cinema history is riddled by deplorable, troubling themes that are depicted in what some have called the first American feature-length film. Continue reading
Posted in Essays on Film, Movie I've Seen, Movies You Should or Should Not See, On DVD, philosophy and film
Tagged above the line, agitprop, birth of a nation, brannavan gnanalingam, center for history and new media, charlie chaplin, d.w griffith, father of film, film criticism, film theory, films of 1915, hollywoods beginnings, kkk, mary pickford, movie reviews, pioneering film techniques, practical movie reviews, racist filmmakers, rory dean, thomas cripps
7 Comments
