• Inside Entertainment,  Media Rants

    The Contemporary Blockbuster

    I had a couple of hours to kill the other week so I saw Monster’s University and was entertained from beginning to end. Here’s a film that tells a story, where the characters have arcs and the climax is justified for containing action – although here it is understated and clever, rather than over-the-top and in-your-face. You have to commend Pixar, who regularly knock out great movies – movies you can enjoy whether you’re a kid or an adult. Amazingly, using CGI, Pixar have the facility to be as outrageous and explosive as they want – there’s no limits with CGI, after all – and yet instead, the CGI is…

  • Inside Entertainment,  Media Rants

    Bond, James … Bond?

    If the Bond franchise were released today, the first one would be great, the next would be okay, and by the third it’d probably be puttering. That’s the route of a lot of modern-day franchises: e.g. Transformers, the Bourne series, Lethal Weapon. By the third movie, most franchises are starting to look worn, and whenever there’s a fourth instalment, it’s usually positively comatose. That Bond survives is because it’s an institution. It’s fifty-years-old. We just accept that instalments will be released. What’s more, the Bonds have an existent fan-base who’ll sustain them. New fans are made (or at least new fans might trial the franchise) because it’s iconic and they…