Ephemera of Vision
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.
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Die Hard in a Stadium, but with some extra heart. This is by far the best Jean-Claude Van Damme film, the fight scenes are closer to Jackie Chan in variety. Hell, every setup pays off in the future, like clockwork.
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I have to admit, future killer Landis Senior can direct some batshit insane stunts in the heart of Chicago, with a framing musical around it. Seriously, those final scenes are truly great.
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This is pure unbridled melodrama, with a very silly framing device to be set in the present, with a supporting character that is much cooler than the main boring one. It’s creepy as fuck, Kirsten Dunst was not actually 100 years old, she was just a child.
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Ah, an old school political thrillers, the comfort food of the post-truth era. This is less icky than Three Days of the Condor, at least she is a willing and motivated participant.
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Very stylish copaganda, this is part of the L.A. Confidential shared universe. It’s mostly about the characters, but there are brutal shootouts, chase sequences, and explosions. A lowbrow affair.
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What the actual fuck did I just watch? This is just softcore cuck porn, with John Derek filming with one hand, and Bo Derek and Anthony “Zorba” Quinn in front of the camera!
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This film is short and stout, not unlike the senator’s cock. The credits call this “Henry James’ Drive-Away Dykes”. Margaret Qualley’s fast talking Texan is heee-hawsome.
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Romancing the Bond, but with many more twists and turns for the drama. The decadence is too over the top, the private equity job too disgusting, and Dennis Leary is not pissed off enough at all these upper class twits.
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Oh god, this has too much Jean-Claude Van Damme attempts at acting, and not enough roundhouse kicks. There’s a HAL ripoff, and they even lift scenes from 2001, where the ‘puter is listening about his own demise across a window and goes rogue.
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Jesus fucking Christ, this barely has any Van Damme or Dolph Lundgren in it, but has maybe over a minute of a strobing full screen white light. Should have trigger warnings. It’s also too porn-adjacent, both the violence and the old fashioned kind, usually mixed together.
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Three women, one farmhouse. The landlords are the focus, but the workers have Rita Cabaço, subdued, without Raiva.
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Jesus, this is tough. Nearly 3h, 4:3, no music except some diegetic chants, literally all shots are fixed cameras (except some minor rocking boats), no close ups or any basic cinematic flair, Inception-level dialogue mixing.
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Moses meets Batman, but with much more fistfights. My god, Trump mentioned by name in the first 15 minutes! There’s too much gunplay for a pure Jean-Claude Van Damme picture.
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Spielberg went and made all his nostalgia-fuelled imitators obsolete. It truly makes Stranger Things shittier than it already is. This is an apolitical Three Days of the Condor.
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This is slightly better, with more variety and time for deeper gags, but it remains a goofy ass action comedy with Jonah Hill, it has a low ceiling.
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