Where to begin with Cloud Atlas, the ambitious new film spanning at least five centuries? A movie so sprawling it took three directors to tackle it? One in which actors portray ages, races, and even genders that are not their own? An adaptation of David Mitchell’s acclaimed novel that many assumed was unfilmable?
Where, oh where, to begin?
(Movies discussed in this post: Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.)
I had the makings of a fanboy. Things could very well have turned out differently for me, had I continued my worship of Batman and the T-Rex instead of turning my eye on the guys who put them in front of my eyes, Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg.
Instead, I evolved — and soon my “Event Movies” were the ones with names like Aronofsky and Cuaron and Greengrass attached. Names the general public probably isn’t even familiar with. What happened? In theory, I’d like to get into those big-time Event Movies the same way I used to, but lately, so many of them turn out to be a non-event. For every blockbuster, there are ten would-be tentpoles that are a plain ol’ bust.
Is it me, or the movies?
