Forgive me J.K. Rowling fans, I have let you down. Though the Harry Potter series may just be my favorite fantasy series, I know nothing at all about J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. It’s a shame, I suppose, because — at least from what I know of her Harry Potter series, I consider Rowling to be one of the best modern writers of our time. I have no doubt that The Casual Vacancy is good, but I know nothing about it.

Now maybe I’ll at least learn about it through this BBC series — though if it’s anything like the relationship between the Harry Potter books and films, the live action drama…

This will be the second time I’ve posted an ‘Every Frame a Painting’ episode. I really need to subscribe to that or something. Anyway, I have not, sadly, seen Drive, but now I really, really want to. It came out just before I really started paying attention to film and wanting to write and podcast about it. So I need to correct this lapse in my education.

But, as regards this video, this really shows the craft of framing and cinematography. When I was an indy filmmaker full time, I could tell when a shot was well composed, and I’ve composed a few shots fairly well myself, but I was never…

First they took his daughter, then they took him and his wife. Now, they didn’t just take his wife, they killed her.

It’s interesting, looking at the slow and steady march down the rankings that this film series has taken. The first film sits at 58% on the Tomatometer. The second at 21%, and this the third film sits at 10%. The critics are none too pleased about this series. And it’s understandable and predictable, if nothing else.

Modest Beginnings

I think the thing I liked most about this film is it didn’t try too hard to drag us in. I didn’t feel as if the film was forcing something…

Haven’t had much to say about this film yet, but I’m most definitely looking forward to it. All the signs point to a great film from a great director. This is the guy that brought us The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol so I’m quite willing to bet that Bird is going to knock this one out of the park. The concept is quite intriguing, and as I said in a previous post, I’m a sucker for a good fantasy film. This one looks like it’s going to be a doozy of a fantasy film.

Here’s the official synopsis from Disney:

From Disney comes two-time Oscar® winner Brad…

Seventh Son is opening this weekend, and I’d kind of like to see it. But I don’t expect it to be that good and I have other films I’d rather see first.

It has been moved from prior release dates twice, originally scheduled to be in theaters this month last year. Along the way it has also changed studios. These are not good signs that this film will have anything of value to show us. But I’m a sucker for a good fantasy film and I’ll probably check it out at some point.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is receiving better than expected reviews — and I’m certainly looking forward to it — but calling it, “More bad ass than James Bond” in this Super Bowl TV spot is just a bit more than I can handle. This film better be really, REALLY good and have a few aces up it sleeve to say that. Honestly.

This trailer is pretty much what you can expect from a short TV spot needing to incite hype amongst an already hyped up Super Bowl sports-watching crowd, but it’s not a bad spot and I’m still looking forward to seeing the film in a couple weeks.

Martin Scorsese and Kenneth Branaugh have had “informal conversations” about Scorsese making a movie based on Branagh’s Manchester International Festival production of “Macbeth.” First playing the fest in 2013, it hopped over to New York City last summer, and Scorsese was apparently quite taken with it. The trick of this particular version is that the audience was brought right into the action, sitting literally inches away from the battles, speeches and more, making for a truly immersive experience. So one could see what would be attractive from a filmmaking standpoint to try and bring…