Blogcritics Author: Nick Da Costa

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Movie Review: Zodiac -- Evolution of a Director

Nick Da Costa — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:58:04 EDT

The purpose of the cipher is concealment. David Fincher’s new film Zodiac demonstrates this in cinematic terms.It’s a brave director who returns after an extended absence from cinema and then subverts the very film that made his career. But that is exactly what Fincher has done with Zodiac. Where his first masterpiece, Seven, was a frenetic, angry take on the serial killer film with a uniquely urban aesthetic, his new film is almost the polar opposite. Though the acute, almost obsessive, attention to detail flows from one scene to the next, it’s the subtle, low-key aspects of the filmmaking that shows it for what it is: a filmmaker maturing before our eyes. Where Seven had an energetic young pup Detective Brad Pitt, Zodiac’s centre is the introverted Robert Graysmith (played here with wide-eyed fervor by Jake Gyllenhaal), a political cartoonist on the San Francisco Chronicle who befriends crime beat reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr., beautifully channeling a foppish Doctor Who) while building an obsession with the very real Zodiac case from the 1970s that has stumped lead investigator Inspector Dave Toschi (the compelling Mark Ruffalo).The technician in Fincher is still vibrantly alive in the powerful time lapse photography showing the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid and the digital mapping of the Zodiac’s letters to the Chronicle onto the audience’s perspective, but these are parts of the puzzle conceit. Time moves on, blocks fall perfectly into place elsewhere, but the worlds of Graysmith, Avery, and Toschi are separate, crumbling into the same ciphers they are meticulously working to solve. Their lives have become as muted, and as sickly, as the jaundiced colours of Harris Savide’s potent cinematography; lives wound up dangerously tight, yet adrift in the cruel wide spread of San Francisco Bay and the open plan offices of the Chronicle that recall Pakula’s All The President’s Men, and enveloped in a menacing soundscape of shrilling telephones, pounding machinery, and departing planes. Even nature is adulterated in the sunlit lakeside setting of the most horrifying scene in the film that also contrasts nicely with the enveloping darkness of Seven’s more gruesome moments. This is a work that requires the utmost concentration and patience on the part of the audience. Just as he did with Seven, The Game and even Fight Club, Fincher confronts us with a conundrum, but in this case one that has no solution. In lesser hands, with less restraint, a more bowdlerized ending would be the result, but instead Fincher leaves us on a chilling note of success just out of reach. It’s dark and pessimistic, but just as Graysmith stares into the face of evil and lives, so do we, but changed by both a fine tribute to the paranoia films of the 1970s and a perfect example of growth in a filmmaker.

Been writing film criticism since I had eyes to see and a mind to nitpick with. Favourite genre being the Western. Had reviews posted on websites like www.aintitcool.com and the UK broadsheet The Independent.

Movie Review: Ocean's Thirteen - Return to Form

Nick Da Costa — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:15:22 EDT

Rolling an impossible thirteen with two dice already on the table, Ocean's Thirteen, Steven Soderbergh's practically critic-proof third entry into the Ocean's canon of heist movies marks a return to both the form of the original film and its Las Vegas setting.The sequel, Ocean's Twelve, sprawled in terms of narrative and location and felt diluted and lacking because of it. In the one true City of Sin it's effortless; each member of this eclectic team of thieves distinguishing himself wonderfully, especially the talented Affleck whose comfortable, playful banter with Caan is like sparring sessions ahead of the main event: Clooney and Pitt.Say what you want about these two, they're practically Hollywood gentry. They're stylish; they lounge like the most consummate lizards. When they're on-screen it feels like you're watching rehearsals, never sure which lines are improvised. We don't flow into their scenes; we break in, the punch line to some fabulous joke just delivered; the opening frustratingly out of reach. What seems extraneous is actually the main pleasure of the film. It's narrative as play, and all the more pleasingly audacious for it, making plot twists or surprises as inconsequential as the dust flicked from a swinger's lapel.It's ephemeral, a taste of the fun these actors must be having behind the scenes, but we're not talking base MTV reality here, this is drunken nostalgia for the old players of Vegas. As the leads emulate Sinatra and Martin like never before, they, along with the double-crossed Reuben, the catalyst of the plot, represent the old moral code of Vegas, facing down the perversion of Vegas's fine history by the vulgar Willie Banks and his prestige without style industry. It's almost ironic that the usually boorish Pacino pulls off an almost subdued turn as the aforementioned Banks. It's touches like this that belie the sly undercurrent to the film as Soderbergh reminds us why he can be such a deft director. Intertwined with the raucous narrative is a scathing look at the distribution of wealth, as dice are manufactured for nothing by oppressed Mexicans and rolled on Banks' crap tables for everything. Masking a message that money is both power and poison with comedy. And it's not just in narrative and theme that Soderbergh shines. Through a clever use of montage, split screen, and floating camera that flits on the edges of the action, he creates an intoxicating pulse, almost funk rhythm that melds perfectly with the tonal shifts of colour, moving from subtle, almost chilly hues of blue and grey to the rich reds, and golds of the strip. It's aesthetic as play, and it's this approach, taking his arty, loose filmmaking style and blending it with the warmth of mass entertainment that makes this film such an audacious hit. However, as Willie Banks might say: tread carefully Mr. Ocean, audacity can only take you so far. Coast on that alone and I can assure you there's a fair few million who won't be betting on you next go around.