herbiehancock

No 380 – Children of Men Director – Alfonso Cuaron Recently I’ ve been watching a lot of silly shallow films. Explosions and pithy banter. It is time to break away from that, but to ask an important question. How can this film be so many places below a piece of tosh like Transformers? Really people? I’m a bit disappointed. I had actually forgotten what a harrowing yet beautiful film this is and how masterfully it tackles its mission. To not only convey the future, but to show a future where there is no hope, nothing to live for. The last generation of a dying species . Let me, for the last time, return to Transformers for an important comparison. In Children of Men we have a science fiction story which requires a lot of exposition. However here we get to witness it through snatches of conversation, snippets of news. Pictures and scenarios. We don’t have a scene where Morpheus spells out what the Matrix is. We don’t have a scene where Optimus Prime pulls out hologr...

No 471 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Director - Alfonso Cuarón So, I didn't have to sit through the first two films, I could move straight to book 3. This is the only Harry Potter film to appear in the top 500 and I think the main reason it does so is because it changes the films. It is not a massive revolutionary change. After all Cuarón was going into a filmic universe which had been set up for two films, and the world of Harry Potter is defined by J.K Rowling and defended by legions of frankly terrifying fans. However there were some important changes. The main one is that this is the film where the series started focusing on the characters rather than the magic. I always felt that Chris Columbus was trying to razzle dazzle us with his view of Harry Potter's world, that each moment of the film had to feel like a set piece full of spectacle and wonder and well... magic. Here is all feels considerably more understated. People use magic to quietly stir their co...