Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) (Wonder Woman 2?)

(SPOILER FREE)

“What’s the law on what ya can and can’t say on a billboard?”

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is yet another victim of the instant gratification world we live in. It opened to critical acclaim, yet just as quickly fell to scathing reviews and judgements about its treatment of race issues and placing a white man’s redemption in the narrative. It happened last year with La La Land. Can’t we just take our time and enjoy things? Maybe give Three Billboards a critical reappraisal in a few years or so? What I saw when I watched Three Billboards was a damned fine film. A film not without its flaws, but a damned fine film nonetheless.

Review: Avatar (2009) (Do We Really Need More Of Pandora?)

So you just figured you’d come here, to the most hostile environment known to men, with no training of any kind, and see how it went?

Avatar was the biggest and best push for the so-called future of film: 3D! In the face of the popularity of piracy and ever-diminishing returns on films thanks to the Recession, Hollywood heads banged together to create something to seduce viewers all the way back to the cinema. What cannot faithfully be reproduced with a pirate copy? What will make people pay more to see a film at the cinema? That’s right, 3D! Never mind about interesting and novel scripts and storylines, or solid, believable characters. Just rehash an old storyline, imagine an entire planet, and film it in 3D. Make sure it costs a lot, spend millions on advertising, and charge ludicrous prices for the pleasure of watching it in three dimensions. Then watch the money roll in! And that’s what happened with Avatar. It wasn’t just James Cameron’s reputation that was on the line; the entire future of the Hollywood industry was on the line. Is there any other reason why a totally awful film would receive so many Oscar nominations?