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Entries categorized as “The Fourth Wall” 63 results
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: “Perfect Days”
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the 2023 Drama Perfect Days.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Kevin:
I've never been one for nature documentaries*. Sorry, folks, but animals are not captivating figures to yours truly. They graze, they run around... but mostly they sleep, right? Of course, I haven't spent much time with animals outside of my dinner plate. For the most part, they make me a bit uncomfortable, such that I reflexively pull my hands towards my chest when passing dogs on the sidewalk. Young Kevin was never, ever interested in feeding sheep at the petting zoo. Why tempt fate by sticking one's fingers anywhere near a creature's mouth?
[*Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man is the exception here, but really, it's a film that's more about the kooky protagonist than the bears he was enamored with.]
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: Does Horror Matter in 2024?
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the the state of the horrror film genre.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Clarence:
It’s Halloween season once again! And of course, a perfect time to fire up the horror movies old and new.
I’m not what you would call a hardcore fan of the genre, but I do respect it when it’s done well. I also appreciate the detailed history of scary movies, from the classic monster flicks of the ‘30s to the atomic scares of the ‘50s to the the psychedelic arthouse cinema of the ‘60s to the Golden Era of the ‘70s and ‘80s (which gave us classics ranging from mainstream blockbusters to grindhouse B-movies) to the self-aware Scream / I Know What You Did Last Summer kicks of the ‘90s to the Saw franchise (and its imitators) of new millennium.
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: Past Lives
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the 2023 Romanic Drama Past Lives.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Kevin:
"Is he attractive?"
-- "I think so. He's really masculine, in this way I think is so Korean."
"Are you attracted to him?"
-- [PAUSE] "I don't know... I don't think so..."
That's not quite the exchange that any husband wants to have when his wife is reconnecting with an old flame, is it? Except that the third party isn't really an old flame. Or is he? It's... complicated.
Let's back up a minute. Past Lives is a story primarily told in three chapters. Na Young (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) are 12-year-old classmates in South Korea who go on one playground "date" before Na's family immigrates to Canada.
A dozen years later, Na (now having changed her name to Nora) reconnects with Hae via Facebook while studying playwriting in New York City. They have a certain chemistry, but nothing comes of their video calls. With their lives headed in different directions, they're unable to coordinate a get-together, and so any spark that was there fizzles out.
Twelve more years pass, and Nora is now married to an American, Arthur (John Magaro), whom she met at a writer's retreat, and they're living together in NYC. Hae contacts Nora out of the blue -- he's headed to America for an impromptu vacation, and wants to know if she'd like to meet. She does.
Their rendezvous, along with the following evening when the three of them meet for dinner, comprise the heart of the story. Does Nora still have feelings for Hae? How much has Nora's time in the West exacerbated the cultural divide between them? And where does Arthur now see himself vis-à-vis Nora?
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: “The Killer”
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the 2023 film The Killer.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Kevin:
"Stick to your plan. Anticipate, don't improvise." -- the titular protagonist of The Killer
Are we sure that The Killer doesn't moonlight as a day trader? As someone who watches the markets, I find myself repeating similar mantras each morning. But never fear, Ye Reader -- the soul-crushing monotony that describes the life of an assassin here is pretty much a non-starter for yours truly. Waiting. Waiting. Always waiting.
David Fincher's new film, The Killer, seems like a bit of a stylistic salute to his 1999 magnum opus Fight Club. Both are adaptations of novels and feature plenty of internal monologues. And both feature leads who possess a certain implacability born of shattered psyches. In the latter, The Narrator (Edward Norton) develops his Thousand-Yard Stare along his descent, whereas the eponymous "hero" (Michael Fassbender) of The Killer displays a stony demeanor from the opening bell.
If The Killer is on your trail, somebody very, very rich has decided that you should no longer be breathing. As Jaqen H'ghar from Game of Thrones once put it: "A minute, an hour, a month. Death is certain. The time is not." Until the day comes when death isn't certain -- a bystander gets in the way of a bullet meant for a target. The Killer's mission is aborted. And his employers, per standard operating procedure, immediately decide to cover their tracks by eliminating all loose ends.
Thus kicks off the heart of the tale, as The Killer realizes that he'll never be safe until his tracks are indeed covered... but in the opposite direction. Predator vs. prey? No. Predator vs. other predators. It's his employers and their hired guns who have to disappear.
Kevin Fullam writesThe fourth Wall: “Casino Royale”
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the 2006 film Casino Royale.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Clarence:
“Bond. James Bond.”
Anyone who knows anything about film history will recognize that famous introduction. Even those who have never seen a frame of the 25 feature films on which this character is based.
I was one of them. Until a few months ago, I had never seen an entire James Bond movie in one sitting. I was familiar with many of the scenes, the one-liners, the cultural discussion of the character and the actors who played him. But not the movies themselves..
Recently, though, I’ve binge-watched all five of the Bond films featuring its most recent lead actor, Daniel Craig. I remember when he made his first Bond appearance in Casino Royale in 2006 there was controversy around how a blond-haired, blue-eyed actor, even a talented one, could pull off such an iconic role. Skeptics needn't have worried; He did, and continued to for another 15 years.
Casino Royale is a bit of a strange entry in the Bond series. The first movie to carry that title (released in 1967) isn’t considered official canon for several reasons and was panned by critics when it first released, but it was based on the Ian Flemming novel of the same name, in which the character James Bond first appears.