The blog of Logan Tyler Smith

 Mank is...good. I say that with no negative connotations; the film works really well in terms of how it both nails the look and feel of a 40s movie while also being filled with witty, entertaining and rapid fire dialogue. The film itself may be niche (what I mean by that is it may only fall on the ears of people who love cinema or the film it's based on, Citizen Kane) but it works on a lot of visual and storytelling level (to some people the movie might drag, but those people are not exactly important for this review).  It does not resonate with me the way other directorial efforts of David Fincher does (I love Fight Club, Seven, the Social Network and even Gone Girl just marginally more) but I also find it's production story particularly endearing. The fact that it was in development hell for so long and featured an effective, well-written screenplay by Fincher's late father (who I'll name here as Jack, because that's his name [he's credited in the film as the...

"Spartacus" is about a young slave in Ancient Rome leading an uprising of fellow slaves against the Roman Empire. When all hope seems lost, the slave must come to terms with the decisions he’s made as both a legend and a martyr.  Spartacus is what big-budget spectacle should aspire to be; epic in scope and scale, filled with magnificent production design, and anchored by great performances by powerful movie stars. The film succeeds on all these accounts and proves itself ahead of its time in all these ways - and let’s not forget the exciting and intense battle scenes where the stakes are high.  Kirk Douglas yet again knocks it out of the park in terms of inspirational character performance as the eponymous hero. Spartacus inspires all around him to rise against the slaves and we feel for him in victory and in tragedy.  I do admit that by today’s standards, the film could seem overlong and slow-paced. However, the film packs a lot in those hours in a way that’s satisfying ...

  In "The Devil's Backbone" an orphan is sent to a school with other orphans during the 1930s. However, supernatural happenings combined with the abusive school staff leads the boy and his superiors to take action. The film is surprising; namely, I thought I'd be going into a generic Spanish horror movie and what I got was like Home Alone in the school setting (with Spanish language speakers and ghosts, of course). The horror elements are obviously on display in the form of a ghost boy murdered by the unlikable, evil groundskeeper of the school.  Speaking of the groundskeeper and other characters, the film makes it very clear who the villain and who the heroes (the children and the well-performed head of the Orphan school) are. All the performances are knockout, even if you are unfamiliar with the actors on screen.  In addition, the film does have genuinely well-staged horror set pieces filled with suspense, as well as a phenomenal ending cat...

In "21 Jump St" two former high school rivals become friends and partners in their local police force. After a big bust fail, they are sent to uncover a high school drug ring as part of a special police unit.  The film is first and foremost a comedy, and a reboot second. The TV show the film is based on never comes into play in any meaningful way (save for a cameo by the show's lead star and a cheeky reference near the beginning of the movie).  The film, even deviating from it's source material, is a fun gut-buster of a movie; every few minutes is something so outlandish you can't help but laugh. Of course, it's the characters who are the ultimate joke, and all the actors own their parts so completely (especially the star leads, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum).  That being said, the film's humor (while witty) can occasionally be a little crude for more sensitive viewers. This barely even mentions a brutal maiming of the film's bad guy by ...

In the 1989 Batman movie, a vigilante exacts his justice upon criminals in the fictional Gotham City. However, a crazy clown comes to match him, leaving the vigilante to stop his plan of chemical warfare.  The film is a bit narratively lax, unfortunately. The film rarely has a central character; bouncing back between the titular character and the clown antagonist and the human journalists without much care.  The film is undeniably visually effective though; the production design and matte paintings are top notch. Despite the narrative problems mentioned earlier, the film does feature some surprising acting performances (Michael Keaton appears miscast at first glance, but does a solid job, and Jack Nicholson is great as always).  The narrative problems might be enough to dissuade most serious cinema experts, but the brand of Batman might arguably be enough to carry it. It does also deviate from it's source material if only mildly (Batman's a killer here...

  In "Child's Play" a young boy really wants a special toy for his birthday. However, things are complicated when it turns out the toy contains the soul of a dangerous serial killer.  The film is actually pretty terrifying for something coming out in the 1980s - it's visceral and has a variety of well-staged horror set pieces (the final act has many layers to it's tension. The idea of a children's toy coming to life to try and kill you certainly adds one of many layers to the tension.  A children's toy being a serial killer is super effective, especially considering (until the toy comes alive in the final act) most of the adults around the kid simply think the kid is disturbed. While this is proven false, it seems to add vague psychological layers in addition to the effectiveness of the horror set pieces.  Being a niche horror movie, it's definitely not going to be for everyone (keep out of reach from children, of course). However, there is a...

  In "The Godfather" a military veteran returns home to his criminal organization-owning family. When an attempt on the patriarch's life is made, the veteran must step up to take his father's place; changing him irrevocably as result.  The Godfather is consistently rated as one of the best movies of all time - and I think that's for a good reason. The film is a cinematic masterpiece; expertly shot while features narrative drive and impeccable acting.  The film is directed by Francis Ford Coppola...but the true stars of the movie are (of course) Al Pacino and Marlon Brando. Marlon Brando gives a phenomenal performance as the aging yet intense mafia don, and Pacino is very believable as the military veteran son coming back and wreaking havoc on those who wronged his family.  The film's runtime and violence are the greatest criticisms I can come up with, and even those aren't detrimental to the film that m...

 In "Bonnie and Clyde" a young woman runs away with a bank robber as a means of adventure. As she and him become a full-fledged robbery team, not everything goes according to their runaway plan.  The film was polarizing for it's glamorous portrayal of crime and it's potential style-over-substance approach. However, the style is so good and full of otherworldly substance all can be forgiven.  The film features terrific performances and contains even better narrative heft. While undeniably simplified (especially in comparison to the true story it's based on) it has an energy to it that's hard to ignore.  The violence and datedness of the time period could be a turn off for some people (after all, it's the 60s looking back on the 30s). Overall the film succeeds (commercially and critically) in spite of said flaws and a simplified narrative.  It may seem like homework, but Bonnie and Clyde is undoubtedly the type of movie you should watch at least once - eithe...

  In “Chungking Express” two separate stories of young police officers either in love with or loved by ladies in Hong Kong are on display. They learn important lessons about love and life through their seemingly benign interactions.  Beauty is the best way to describe the film; both visually and philosophically. That and the circumstances in which it was made the way it was and is still coherent is surprisingly impressive.  Writer-director Wong Kar-Wai usually has a vague idea of a story and shoots his film like a documentary - following his actors until he edits it into something resembling a movie (which this is!). Honestly, I did not expect a film shot that way to be both visually beautiful and narratively coherent.  Despite this, I can see how some people might find the story (however compelling) to meander at parts; as well as be turned off by the use of Chinese dialects (it’s worth noting the film originated in Hong Kong). However, much like Rashomon, I do beli...

In "A Nightmare on Elm Street" several teenagers are picked off one-by-one while having terrifying, similar nightmares. As it turns out, a monster from their neighborhood's past is out to take revenge on this neighborhood, it appears at any cost.  Iconic is the best word I could use to describe this movie; whether or not it's good to you it's certainly iconic. This is mostly for the electrifying, thematically terrifying villain: Freddy (or "Fred') Krueger.  You probably know the name if not the context; he's a former child murderer who haunts and kills his victims in their sleep, often in the form of a nightmare (pun partially intended). He was believed dead and actually lives inside a story that's hard to tell from the character's reality or their dreams (it admittedly leaves the doomed character's fates to the audience's imagination).  For that terrifying premise alone, it definitely won't resonate with everyone. Horror movies ar...

 In "Rashomon" the story of a crime against a samurai in feudal Japan is retold many times to a curious onlooker by people involved in the investigation. However, the more details get added, the more complicated and unreliable the story gets.  The film is an excellent exploration of memory; how flawed and imperfect in can be but also how self-serving it often is. The film's astonishing craft and expertly choreographed sword fights just add to this exploration all the same.  The film may be densely thematic, but it's also an astonishing piece of cinema; the camera work never draws attention to itself and yet is expertly composed. The black-and-white may not be for everyone, but when you're roped into the story and scenes all is forgiven.  The aforementioned black-and-white might not work for some, not to mention the fact that it's a foreign-to-America (Japanese) film. However, as a piece of cinema I do believe it generally can transcend to an American audience....

  In “Apocalypse Now”, a soldier is sent on an epic sojourn through Vietnam to complete an assassination mission. The more he reads his target’s dossier, however, the more he realizes he relates to him.  Apocalypse Now was memorably difficult to make - it went well over-budget and resulted in negative coverage of director Francis Ford Coppola’s perfectionism. However, if you look at the finished product (an effortless-looking performance magnet that accurately if psychedelically portrays the Vietnam War) you wouldn't immediately know that Coppola put his blood, sweat, and tears into this project.  Everything I said is true and I’ll restate it here; the film feels effortless and features a plethora of good performances from the cast; Martin Sheen is believable as the soldier on a mission. Marlon Brando (who had previously worked with Coppola on The Godfather) shines in his part as sheen’s possibly narcissistic yet charismatic target on route to assassination.  All of ...

  In “Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox”, superhero Barry Allen (aka The Flash) wakes up to a world drastically different from the one he knows; apparently through time travel. Barry now must get his powers back, revert the timeline back to normal, and prevent World War Three from happening in his current timeline.  This film is very specifically niche (which is probably why it didn’t go to theatres). That being said, for the devoted niche it panders to there is no reason to complain; the film is pure unadulterated and action-packed fan service, arguably to a fault.  The film’s fan service comes partially from the fact it adapts a real storyline from the comic books, but it also comes with it’s true-to-heart handling of its title character(s?). The fan service comes from watching these reboot characters come to life on the (small) screen, and very few fans of DC comics could bemoan that.  That being said, the film will probably not appeal to the undevoted. The f...

  Paths of Glory is about a French Colonel in World War I is forced to carry out a suicidal attack by his superiors. After the attack goes predictably south, the Colonel must defend his men from a seemingly inevitable and tragic court martial.  The film is a step up for Kubrick in a lot of ways; it’s heartbreaking, humanist, and particularly intense (especially in its final moments). The film also features a particularly electrifying performance from Kirk Douglas as the Colonel, which does the rest of the film a great service.  The film is hard to watch - and I say that primarily as a positive. The film evokes a special emotion from it’s audience, particularly during the beautifully sad final act (the final scene is a particularly human take on the emotion of war).  But because of this, it certainly can be itself a turn-off for some people or audiences who like more positive endings. The film is so beautifully executed, however, that I truly don’t care either way....

The Killing is about a career criminal who plans an elaborate heist of a horse racing circuit in order to settle down with his girlfriend and finally go straight. But when one of his accomplices tells him scheming wife of the plan, the heist quickly becomes more complicated.  The film is full of solid twists and turns, presented with clockwork precision both in technical prowess and storytelling proficiency. There is tension at every corner and the more a complication gets exploited, the more emotion you feel for the characters (even acknowledging they’re criminals and liars).  The film may be created by a director years from creating some of his best work, but it’s still a rosetta stone for everything Stanley Kubrick would later create; it has impeccably framed shots, morally ambiguous characters, and a realistic, documentary-like view of what happens when people engage in criminal behavior. Nonetheless, we root for the characters like we do in any heist movie.  However,...

  In “Sixteen Candles” a teenage girl shows predictable angst after her family forgets her birthday. After an unwanted romantic pursuit by a geek and while trying to get together with a guy she likes, she ultimately sees the value in her family and unpleasant circumstances that will inevitably turn pleasant.  Sixteen Candles is, to put it simply, surprisingly funny. Fueled by an effective pursuit by the young Molly Ringwald and injected with strong writing and dialogue, the film more than stands on its own.  The two greatest strengths of the movie are the writing and the acting. Completely revolutionary at the time, the writing humanizes most of the characters (the aforementioned Ringwald is great, though Anthony Michael Hall as a geek practically steals the scenes he’s in, also).  While I stand by my statements about the characters being well-written, not all characters are written equally (an asian character and the main love interest both are a bit stereotyped/unp...

So this is basically my reaction to the trailer for the 2021 “The Batman” film. Please enjoy. My name is Logan Tyler Smith, and in this series of LoganLand Prime I will analyze movies that are newer or more contemporary in the public consciousness. Welcome to the New Releases series.  I’ve been thinking about this for A LONG time already.  Truth be told I pretty much never do reaction videos or podcasts. I wouldn’t say I’m against them, but they are by no means the types of videos I wanted to make. Not bashing reactors, they do good work a lot of the time, but there’s a disinterest in me in terms of video creation in general.  Then I saw The Batman trailer.  I immediately felt like I was sixteen years old. The song from Nirvana was a well documented element that added to the thematic feel of the trailer. More importantly, everything from Batman to Catwoman to Gordon to Penguin to even Riddler and the goon Batman one-hundred percent brain damaged, everything is execut...

 In "The Breakfast Club", five teenagers with wildly different personalities and subcultures are sent to detention for a variety of different reasons. Ultimately they learn to respect each other in this environment while also realizing they are very similar in a lot of different ways.  The Breakfast Club is an older movie (circa 1985) and maintains an impressive air of dialogue and solid filmmaking even to this day. While obviously not socially perfect (Bender is admittedly a bit sexist, at least at the beginning) the film manages to balance different subcultures while acknowledging their similarities in many smart ways through dialogue and music.  The soundtrack remains iconic today (who could forget about me (or the song "Don't you forget about me") and the dialogue is similarly up-to-par. The writing manages to humanize the teenage characters while also being funny, revealing, and above-all naturalistic (we believe what they say like we believe what friends a...

This is the segment where I talk about movies pre-2015 that may have escaped the public consciousness in recent years. I'm Logan Tyler Smith, and this is In Case You Missed It. 2001: A Space Odyssey has many different stories of humanity and space that are told in epic scale. From a robot gone mad to the birth of tools at the hands of aliens called “Monoliths” there is very much a throughline of how vast space truly is, something all the characters learn in one form or another.  2001 is rough on some audiences; the first half and last half of the film are told exclusively without dialogue. That being said, they cram a lot into those minutes - the aliens teaching primitive man-apes to make tools is actually perfectly told without dialogue.  The film is, as it goes without saying, beautiful and a technical masterclass from Stanley Kubrick. Ambitious and managing to tell a complete story using visual symbols and powerful images, Kubrick did a lot within a grand scale, while simul...

Hello. If you’re on this blog chances are something about it interested you. Maybe it’s a movie review you thought was well-written, maybe it’s an interesting sense of categorization throughout, or maybe you’re just drawn to my colorful aesthetic . You may have been drawn to this blog in a variety of ways.  But chances are you don’t know who I am. And that’s unacceptable. (: My name is Logan Tyler Smith. I’m a filmmaker AND film critic (yes you can be both). I write, direct, and edit short films for YouTube and write movie reviews for the very blog you’re reading. I also have a podcast where I (surprise, surprise) monologue about movies. My short videos range from comedy or crime fiction to documentary nonfiction (my channel has some video essays that fall in that category).  My channel’s growth has been anemic so far (not complaining), so I’m not saying this is a full-time career (yet). However, I plan to keep pushing forward and continue to make content because this is...

My name is Logan Tyler Smith, and in this series of LoganLand Prime I will analyze movies that are newer or more contemporary in the public consciousness. Welcome to the New Releases series. In “The Invisible Man”, an young woman suffers through her abusive, technologically proficient boyfriend’s supposed suicide. Things take a dark turn, however, when she learns that her boyfriend might not just be alive, but also invisible through the use of his technology.  The film is layered and metatextual - an abuse survivor who goes through hell and back just to escape her boyfriend’s shadow (only kind of literal) that continues to dominate her. She is instantly relatable to survivors of abuse, and fights back in a way the viewers only dream they could (spoilers, they probably can).  Now I should mention that the film is also a technical masterclass - it is made with astonishing precision in terms of it’s invisible antagonist. Also, the performance by actress Elizabeth Mos...

My name is Logan Tyler Smith, and in this series of LoganLand Prime I will analyze movies that are newer or more contemporary in the public consciousness. Welcome to the New Releases series. In “The Irishman” a elderly former hitman named Frank Sheeran recounts the secrets he kept as a member of an infamous crime syndicate. Through flashbacks and flash-forwards, we learn of the toll killing has taken on him, his family and his criminal associates.  The film is exactly what you can expect for a gangster movie in terms of scale and ambition. Director Martin Scorsese crafts a world that makes gang violence seem matter-of-fact but also somehow devastating - and the film itself executes that perfectly.  In addition to the obviously phenomenal production design, the film also succeeds in getting memorable performances from digitally de-aged actors Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci (who came out of retirement for this picture), and Al Pacino (in his first time working for Scorsese...