Movie Review: Ready Player One (2018) *All Pop Without the Culture*

Tye Sheridan in Ready Player One
What happens when reality gets to be too much?  Well, most of us depart it as soon as possible.  “Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” (little T.S. Eliot for you) and it’s true.  Especially in the hypersaturated information age, reality is an overwhelming non-stop sensory onslaught.  People need to check out to stay sane.  Some find healthy ways of doing this, others not so healthy, but the need for escapism remains.  In Ready Player One, the enter world has escaped a depressing society into a virtual reality playground known as the OASIS.  Inside, the whole world is engaged in a treasure hunt to find three keys that will unlock the ownership of the OASIS embedded in the system by its deceased founder.  If that sounds like an awesome premise for a story, you are correct.  The book is one of my favorite of the last decade.  Whether you like Ready Player One or not, is probably going to depend on whether you have read the book or not and know just how much better THAT story is than the one Steven Spielberg delivers. Continue reading Movie Review: Ready Player One (2018) *All Pop Without the Culture*

Top 10: Best Movie Dialogue of All-Time

We haven’t had a CineFix list in a while; my favorite place for YouTube movie lists.  As a “word person” myself, I firmly believe the best films begin with the best scripts.  Most of the best scripts rest on the back of great dialogue.  CineFix has put together their 10 Best Dialogue Movies of All-Time.  The thing that makes CineFix’s lists so intriguing is that they’re not straight top 10 lists.  Each rung on their ladder represents a specific aspect of the topic they’re tackling, and unlike some sites, they have a long memory for film and do a great job of comparing classic cinema with recent releases.  For example the ten spots in the Best Dialogue of All-Time represent: evoking a place or time, wordplay, subtext, verbal conflict, storytelling, realism, hyper stylized, Non-American English dialogue, banter, and Shakespearean.  As usual, I probably would have picked one of their honorable mentions for several spots, and instead of highlighting Kenneth Lonergan as the “up and coming” voice in screenwriting, I’d have highlighted Taylor Sheridan (Wind River, Hell or High Water).  It’s still interesting and educational, as always.


Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet