Image Credit: DrawingsbyNad on ArtStation Growing up I always loved comic books. Stories about heroes overcoming challenges that seemed insurmountable fired my young imagination with ideas of what could be possible in life through fighting to do the right thing. As a result of my angsty youth, my favorite hero has always been Batman . Reading about a normal man who became a hero with no powers besides sheer determination spoke to the ideals of self improvement and personal determination that I find profound. For a long time, I saw Batman as something that was part of my childhood with The Dark Knight being one that stood as my favorite interpretation of Batman, indeed it was my favorite superhero movie, for nearly 13 years. All that changed when I sat down last year to watch Matt Reeves' The Batman . The setting of The Batman is Gotham City. a corrupt, dank city wracked by crime and bureaucratic failure. The movie opens with an angry and ...
Speed Racer Final Sequence from Oli Bassnett on Pinterest The goal of art is to affect the viewer. It wants to move us. The feeling of being moved and affected is a universal trait among the movies I have covered so far. They all achieve their goal through different means. Some films like Whiplash, which I discussed in my last post, do so intellectually. Others, like Dead Poets Society in my first, make you think while tugging on your emotional heartstrings. Sometimes, however, a movie attempts to move past the domain of realism to strike at the very heart of our emotions. They show us what we're feeling rather than tell us what we should be feeling. One film that falls into this third category is the 2008 film Speed Racer . Speed Racer follows the exploits of the driver Speed Racer (yes it's very on the nose) as he battles his way through the cutthroat world of professional racing with his family; battling ruthless execut...