Author: Rob Dean

As studios place more emphasis on blockbuster franchises and expanded cinematic universes, the skill of worldbuilding will be in high demand. Worldbuilding is a storyteller’s ability to efficiently lay out the rules and framework of a particular fictional world. It’s something that’s used most commonly in the science fiction and fantasy genres, setting expectations while also subtly showing the ways it is commenting on current world politics or social situations. It’s very hard to pull off without dumping too much exposition all at once in a manner that feels unnatural to the story being told. Robert Rodriguez’s new film, “Alita:…

Specificity is the key to any truly great parody or metatextual dissection. By meticulously studying, understanding and deploying the smallest details of a genre, commenting artists are able to elevate their critiques into an entertaining take that reveals a true mastery of the subject matter. Mel Brooks was very familiar with westerns before satirizing the genre with “Blazing Saddles” and using it to make further commentaries on race and mythologizing of the west. Contrast that with Brooks’ “Spaceballs,” where most of the jokes are broad slapstick and sight gags independent of “Star Wars.” Both may be funny, but the former…

The filmmakers of the present tend to be chasing the movies of their past. That is to say that with each new generation of directors, the stories that influenced them at an impressionable age come back filtered through their own experiences and with a new twist. The so-called Movie Brats of the 70s (Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese, Coppola, De Palma, etc.) were raised on serials, adventure stories and Hollywood studio system classics, which led to films like “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Scarface.” That era of filmmaking has now come full circle with the latest crop of directors,…

2018 was a garbage dump of a year, nationally (and internationally) speaking. The year was marked with lots of turmoil, with each new day bringing some slice of horrific news or awful development that sought to pull people down into defeat. Despite that (or maybe because of it), it was an exceptional year for film, with many different genres and formats offering up superlative versions that will be long remembered for their performances, prescience and impeccable execution. It’s always hard to discern between “best” and “favorite” — a necessary divorce in the brain between what is objectively good and what is…

The “Transformers” film franchise is a particularly odd beast. Across five movies, they have raked in billions of dollars, and though a portion of that is international money, large sums of it still come from the United States. While critics have consistently derided the Michael Bay blockbusters, those reviews have clearly had zero impact on the box office. The point is that these tales of morphing robots are popular, with each installment seen by multiple people (and possibly multiple times). But it is very hard to find a true fan of this cinematic universe. At best, people muster a half-hearted…

There are sensations in life that immediately flash our brains backwards in time to when things were different for us. These time-traveling mind explosions are usually triggered by some sort of sensory experience—eating a particular dish, hearing a certain song, smelling a signature scent—that rejuvenates and rekindles a part of ourselves that have long laid dormant. “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” had one such effect on me. It didn’t remind me of a specific day from my youth, but it flooded my heart with the excitement and energy of when I was bursting with imagination and a sense of wonder. Directed…

There is nothing like that eureka moment when a solution comes into view. As you snap in the final puzzle piece or unravel a mystery, the elusive elements come together in sharp focus and things suddenly feel whole again, producing a specific rush that is very hard to replicate. This unique experience comes at the end of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film, “The Favourite,” not because of any twist ending or sudden reversal, but in the way that it fits in with the filmmaker’s previous work. While Lanthimos’ previous movies (“Dogtooth, “The Lobster” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”)…

Most variations of the crime genre have been told to death. Whether it’s a heist, a murder, a kidnapping or some mix of these, the story beats have all been hit since pulp magazines and film noir exploded onto the scene in the ’30s and ’40s. That doesn’t mean there aren’t new stories to tell, but it does mean that every narrative moment has been quietly encoded onto audiences’ minds so they know what needs to happen to pull of a successful robbery or catch a crook. No matter how many twists and reversals, double-crosses and triple-crosses or shocking reveals…

While there are happy accidents and small goofs that end up on screen, the vast majority of what people see in a film was done on purpose. It was planned out from script to production to editing, with each moment intentionally included in a specific way. In a good movie, these decisions reflect strong collaboration and informed choices to deliver the most impactful way of telling the story and creating a mood for the audience. In less than good cinema, these inclusions can be baffling and even pull the viewer out of a movie. “Overlord,” directed by Julius Avery from…

It’s always interesting to witness growing pains happen in real time, like seeing an individual movie awkwardly attempt to expand to create a franchise. It’s a rare occurrence, but there are some films that try to shoehorn in other elements to allow for the expansion of the plot, character or even other titles. “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Iron Man 2” both spastically crawled while attempting to set up different cinematic universes, watering down their own plots and characters in the process. “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” isn’t as flailing as those two films, but there are…