Rian Johnson is one of my favorite current filmmakers. If his style could be summed up in a sentence, Johnson excels at deconstructing popular genres.
Want a Film Noir? He’ll set the heightened drama of a noir in high school, where kids are naturally more dramatic.
The Brothers Bloom is a fresh twist on a caper film. Looper tweaks the standard tropes of Time Cop-style time travel movies.
He’s at his best when he can take a format we’re familiar with, maybe even tired of, and he’s able to throw a tiny wrench into the machine we understand.
Even his Star Wars entry is less a good Star Wars film, and more a commentary on the most popular tropes of Star Wars films. It’s a fascinating examination of a beloved franchise, even if it doesn’t quite work as an episode of the series.
Recently we saw a handful of stories relating Rian Johnson’s experiences in using Apple branded products in his films, specifically how it impacts the story for his “whodunnit” mystery comedy Knives Out.
