Letterboxd Review: 2012

Letterboxd Review: 2012 - 2009

The Story - A frustrated writer struggles to keep his family alive when a series of global catastrophes threatens to annihilate mankind.
Cast - John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandiwe Newton
Crew - Roland Emmerich (Director/Writer)
Runtime - 158 minutes

This is my guilty pleasure, I like this one more than Day After Tomorrow even when the latter is more iconic and perhaps better in story.

Watching this again after many years I appreciate how goofy this movie is, it is basically a cartoon world where everything bad can and will happen. The characters are obnoxious but they are also funny, which goes a long way to not make this 2 and a half hour movie less tedious.

The effects and destruction look incredible now and this new 4K restoration makes everything more stable, the colors more vibrant, and fewer digital artifacts.

2012 4K Blu-ray release.

Comments

300 - Review

"A new age has begun, an age of freedom. And all will know that 300 Spartans gave their last breath to defend it." It is hard to describe a movie from the past two decades that has had as much impact on young men as 300 . Even when we compare it to films like Fight Club , Drive , or John Wick , 300 seems to speak in a way that almost any man is captured by its aesthetics and mythology. To dismiss a movie, especially one with such magnitude and power as "popcorn entertainment," is at best, ignorant, and at worst, a facilitator of its message and, in the case of this film, its cryptofascist message. Let us be clear for a second: movies, like any other art form, are not created in a vacuum by soulless and thoughtless people. The zeitgeist, culture, time period, and events all affect the media we consume, produce, create, and enjoy. German cinema from the 1930s and 40s served as a way to understand the Führer pro...

Review: Resan (The Journey) - 1987

Story - Petter Watkins' global look at the impact of military use of nuclear technology and people's perception of it, as well as a meditation on the inherent bias of the media, and documentaries themselves. Cast - Peter Watkins Crew - Peter Watkins (Director) Runtime - 873 minutes "I think to remove the veil of ignorance from the world is the most direct way at least to achieve enlightenment." Sometimes it is incredibly difficult to sit and watch a long movie, after all, the way of life in the XXI century has been accelerating to the point that 90-minute movies are consumed in 20 different parts on a tiny screen while commuting to work. This is a world that 15 years ago I would have never imagined. I believe on this occasion, watching a movie divided into 19 different sections has helped me to appreciate and embrace what it is trying to say on a different level. It is hard for someone in 2024 to...

Pale Rider - Review

"There's plain few problems that can't be solved with a little sweat and hard work." Western is a genre as old as cinema itself, and it has in it everything that America represents or did at one point. However, as much as it is an American genre, it does lack one of the key aspects of its culture: religion. I am not talking about the imagery of Christ or the occasional encounters with preachers and churches, but rather the hope and sense of community that people found in their faith. I have read many reviews about this film and comparisons with Shane (1953) are all too common, especially on Letterboxd, and while I have yet to see the movie, I can see its influence, especially in the way it tries to portray heroism and doing the right thing for others. Pale Rider is a product of a dying genre, one that started to become smaller and more emotional. Long are the days of Native American fights with the Coloni...

The Alex Archives

Search This Blog