Game of Thrones episode review: "The Queen's Justice"

Image taken from IMDb.

dir. by Mark Mylod
written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss
Game of Thrones's recent push towards the finish line has led to a lot of episodes consisting primarily of exposition and foreboding. Small character moments and striking outbursts of violence, often the bread-and-butter of the show, still appear, but have tended to be buried under a lot of straightforward table-setting. This isn't to say that the first two episodes of season 7 were at all bad - both were fairly solid for what they were - but the real meat of the story only begun midway through last week's episode, and much of the season's setup could be awfully dry.

Because of that, the quiet, lingering tension of "The Queen's Justice" feels genuinely triumphant, focusing entirely on dialogue and performance while focusing primarily on a small handful of storylines. Narrative progress is only incremental, and yet the episode is so patient with those small jumps forward that each one feels earned, and in some cases even relieving. It's the later scenes, which more briefly cover the other storylines, which feature more surprises, but this week, Game of Thrones made foregone conclusions feel thrilling.

Game of Thrones episode review: "Stormborn"

Image taken from IMDb

dir. by Mark Mylod
writ. by Bryan Cogman
Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that this season of Game of Thrones has consisted largely of buildup. Next season will be the show's grand finale, and the showrunners have a lot to establish if those final episodes are to be big enough to satisfy. As it outpaces George R. R. Martin's novels, it increasingly abandons their intricacy in favour of more conventionally pleasing elements, with character reunions, answered questions, and big battles being the most common of these. It's good at what it does, but it's also become less essential and less singular.

While "Stormblood" follows the usual formula of reunions, answers, and battles, its table-setting has much more narrative momentum than that of the premiere, it continues the show's championing of little character moments and begins to provide some tension in this season's narrative. It's still a bit minor, yes, but a show as focused on broader narrative as this needs these episodes from time to time, and this one is handled pretty well.

Movie review: "Dunkirk"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir./written by Christopher Nolan
In recent years, superstar director Christopher Nolan has fancied himself a technician. The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar were undeniably theatrical experiences, and now, his Dunkirk is the first major film to be shot with IMAX cameras. Nolan has gone as far as to refer to his films as "theatrical experiences," and would implicitly prefer if you saw this new one on the format which he designed it for. However, the risk of designing a film around technology is that it will lose its power in a lesser format, so for all of Dunkirk's acclaim, I approached with trepidation.

In truth, appreciation of Dunkirk is likely to come easy no matter what format it's experienced in, as while the sound and image of the IMAX cinema serves to enhance the film's cacophonous, claustrophobic beauty, those elements are built into the film enough that they will come across clearly no matter how diminished they may be. Dunkirk is a harrowing, disorienting, and genuinely astonishing experience, and it successfully recreates the sheer panic which must have accompanied this evacuation. It looks and sounds like a masterpiece, and had it just a little more of a human core or fully resisted patriotic sentiment, it would be there. As is, it's merely excellent.

Movie review: "War for the Planet of the Apes"

dir. by Mat Reeves
written by Mark Bomback and Matt Reeves
2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes held a unique place in the summer blockbuster scene. Despite certain issues such as uninteresting human characters, it was nuanced and ambitious in ways that few of its contemporaries were. It depicted a tense situation between the titular apes and the world of men, and offered both positive and negative actors on each side, and boasted a lot of depth in its characterization and ambition in its narrative which are still rarely seen in films of this budget. It was a dark, somber, and long blockbuster, but it paid off with narrative profundity even if it wasn't always much fun.

The final installment of this trilogy, War for the Planet of the Apes, is still impressive for its sympathetic characterization and soaring ambition, and it's easily the most technically accomplished film of the trilogy, but somewhere between the two films, something was lost. War is a film which strives for narrative depth while shying away from anything which might compromise its black-and-white morality, and while the film is still gorgeous and more exciting than its predecessor, it still takes itself too seriously to justify its simplicity.

It ain't bad, but I wish I saw what the rest of you see in this.

Movie review: "The Big Sick"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. by Michael Showalter
written by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon*
Romantic comedies have a reputation for being contrived and artificial. They're associated with a very familiar set of tropes and plot structures and are often filled with silly reasons that the main couple needs to remain apart until the end. These movies are popular, but they're also frequently regarded as fluffy, disposable, and mindless.

The Big Sick is different. Unlike the standard Hollywood romcom, its twists and turns are based on reality. It's an authentic story in a genre which is so often phony, a funny movie but also a heartfelt story with a melancholy undertone. What its protagonists go through isn't easy, but those tribulations are not only believable, they feel true. It's that authenticity which makes the film feel so genuine and which gives it all of its emotional power. It's not packed with gags or comic scenarios. Instead, it's funny because it's witty and honest, and it's great because it's willing to take itself a little seriously.

Game of Thrones episode review: "Dragonstone"

written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss
dir. by Jeremy Podeswa
HBO's Game of Thrones has been struggling to find its way without its source material for a season and a half now. Season 5 suffered under the weight of excessive brutality and the uninvolving Dorne storyline, and season 6 frequently resorted to feel-good pandering. Going forward, HBO has reduced its order from 10 episodes to 8, and it remains to be seen whether this will serve to reduce the show's bloat and repetition, or if it'll simply cramp the storytelling.

As always, the premiere is not the right place to judge the quality of a season. "Dragonstone" is dedicated primarily to setting up the season to come, and as a result is packed with expository conversations and minor developments. But these minor developments show promise, and the episode ditches the hacky sentimentality of season 6 in favour of moments of quiet observation. Ultimately, the world and characters of Game of Thrones are still compelling enough to make even its slowest patches enjoyable, and "Dragonstone" satisfies most of all by setting almost every one of the show's storylines into motion.

Spoilers follow.

Movie review: "Spider-Man: Homecoming"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. by Jon Watts
One day, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will consume us all, but for now, it's an astonishingly consistent and frequently delightful if overly serialized blockbuster series which has yet to produce a proper failure. Its third phase, in particular, has achieved a sublimely even quality across its four entries so far, all of which are compelling in their own way. At this point, the Marvel stamp is commonly viewed as a stamp of quality, and although none of these films are high art, they're entertaining and intelligent blockbusters which deliver light thrills just as well as character drama.

Spider-Man: Homecoming, despite its peculiar release arrangement with Sony, is not only on par with its phase 3 brethren, but rises up to be quite possibly the best of the lot. It's a simpler story than many of the studio's other offerings, but that's to its advantage, as it avoids the increasingly oppressive seriousness of the universe's most significant entries while retaining a sharp wit and a low-scale intimacy. It's fun like Marvel films always are, but it's also charming and fresh to a degree which is less common in this franchise.

Movie review: "The Beguiled"

dir. by Sofia Coppola
Allegedly, Sofia Coppola was drawn to remake The Beguiled by a desire to gender-flip the narrative, to make it an examination of the experience of white women during the American Civil War. I've not read the source material or seen the prior adaptation, but by reputation it's a sleazy bit of Southern Gothic pulp, and reversing the emphasis of that to a feminine viewpoint seems like a challenging undertaking, especially when attempting to build on sexual repression and boredom, which are inherently difficult emotions to represent on screen.

Coppola's effort is intriguing and occasionally strikes a resonant note, but her efforts to make the material more dignified and respectable have sapped it of all life, and the new film's needlessly brief 93-minute runtime comes at the expense of necessary context which would have greatly enhanced its intuitive storytelling. There's some merit in expecting the audience to bring prior knowledge to project onto the film, but combined with the flatness of the direction here, it's resulted in an often dull viewing experience whose merits are largely subjective to the point of invisibility.