James Marsh (2) (1963–)

Young Stephen Hawking marries with a life expectancy of two years.

It's basically a soap opera, which just incidentally happens to feature a famous physicist. He could have any sort of academic job, and it wouldn't change the story. Which is for the best. Movies about Scientists Doing Science never work. Instead the focus is on well-proven and popular movie tropes of the Romance & Adversity variety. There isn't anything here that I don't feel like I've seen before, but they execute those show more pieces expertly, and do a good job putting them together into strong movie.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: C

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.9/4 show less

A bored teenage girl plays with fire while a former school mistress skips town on a cocaine binge. A snakebitten opera singer gorges on cow food as infant mortality rates skyrocket. And did we mention the suicides? A spellbinding, demented twist on the historical documentary genre, Wisconsin Death Trip catalogues a decade of life in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Utilizing town newspaper clippings, police accounts, journal entries and records from the Mendota Asylum for the Insane, director show more James Marsh presents a series of bizarre, sad and sometimes funny tales from 1890s America. Marsh's recreations – filmed on location in crisp black-and-white – are hypnotic, and his calm sense of pacing breathtaking. Inspired by Michael Lesy's cult classic coffee table book of the same name, Wisconsin Death Trip marks the cinematic breakthrough of a master storyteller.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210389/ show less

The French acrobat Philippe Petit thrilled the world in 1974 when, after months of spying and planning, he snuck to the top of the World Trade Center, strung a high wire from the corner of one of the Twin Towers to the other, and performed the world's greatest high wire walk. For the serious-minded, acrobatics might seem a frivolous pursuit. But raise the stakes to 1,300 feet above New York City's cold, hard pavement, and circus stunts become a matter of life — as in the kind that's lived show more to its fullest — and death. In revisiting Petit's story, director James Marsh (Wisconsin Death Trip, The King) has constructed a gorgeous, innovative, nail-biting and operatic celebration of free spirits. Man on Wire combines home movies, interviews, snippets of heist films and an editing rhythm that echoes Petit's own sense of wonder and adventure. This uplifting documentary was the deserving winner of Sundance's Grand Jury and Audience Awards. (JS)

http://www.manonwire.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155592/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_Wire
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/man_on_wire/ show less

The life of a chimpanzee raised as a human.

Fascinating, and made with apparent objectivity. It's a powerful and sad story, and ultimately not as much of a downer of a movie as it might have been.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: n/a
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 3.0/4