The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010): United States – directed by Michael Apted
Rated PG by the MPAA – contains some scary moments and action violence
This third entry into the Chronicles of Narnia series has a new distributor, and a smaller budget, but this is not immediately evident. After Prince Caspian failed to live up to its enormous budget, Disney dropped the Walden Media production, and Fox picked it up. Thus, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader comes to us courtesy of Fox Walden.
I have not read the Narnia books in many years, and will take other’s word that this entry includes some of the plot of Dawn Treader, with some other strains from The Silver Chair. Nevertheless, the plot here is rather straightforward. Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) are the two remaining Pevensie children, stuck in England during the war. Peter and Susan are in America, along with their parents. So Lucy and Edmund stay with their cousin, Eustace (Will Poulter), a whiny, petulant boy who sneers at their fanciful notions of Narnia and its magic. Naturally, a painting on the wall starts pouring water as they fight, and they are all sucked into the sea.
Captains Courageous is a film like many others, whose popularity decreased after perhaps the late 1950’s, when cliches had become so rooted in film culture that the only way to move an audience was to shock them, mildly at first then rather strongly as the 1960’s gave way to the 1970’s. But Captains Courageous is a gentle reminder that there used to be a different kind of movie, one that told a solid story with interesting characters. Some of it may be dated now, and some of it may be cliche today, but it still works, and rather well at that.
Vincente Minnelli was a go-to director for much of his career, assured of financial hits at every turn. And he churned out a number of crowd-pleasers, very few of which have endured as bona fide classics. The Courtship of Eddie’s Father is no exception.
Without star turns by 
Changeling is Clint Eastwood tackling a period piece, a crime drama, a murder mystery, an historical account, police corruption, and the mistreatment of women in 1920’s Los Angeles. The film is based on a true story, making certain elements all the more unsavory. But it is an interesting story, and a complicated one, as evidenced by the 141 minute runtime. This is Eastwood at his most bloated, and the numerous plot threads eventually hurt a generally engaging tale.
Cremaster 4 is video art at its most intellectual and strange. Knowing Matthew Barney’s overall ideas help make this interesting piece more accessible, though it’s difficult to tell how the themes presented here coalesce with the rest of his ideas without seeing the other segments of the Cremaster Cycle.
There’s a dirty ex-detective (
It is quite difficult, going back and watching a master’s old films and attempting to review them. It is difficult to understand how the film was received when it premiered, how one might have reacted and reviewed it at the time. It is difficult to judge a master filmmaker, one whose body of work is highly regarded, one who is responsible for one of the truly groundbreaking shifts in cinema, and one who continues to influence filmmakers today.