#45 — They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969) Sydney Pollack knew how to put together a movie. He was a favorite director of mine, despite the not insignificant detail that he didn’t make all that many great movies. … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Forty-Five
Our Idiot Brother (Jesse Peretz, 2011). There’s sure an abundance of promising elements to this comedy, but it illustrates the vast divide between lining up the right pieces and assembling them properly. Paul Rudd plays a layabout organic farmer who gets busted for selling pot to a police officer and then cycles through staying with his various siblings, played by Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel and Emily Mortimer. It’s boilerplate comic uplift with everyone evolving to understand the kind-hearted qualities behind the protagonist’s aggravatingly detached manner. There’s barely a laugh to be had in the film, though, and most of the … Continue reading Cahill, Dardenne and Dardenne, Linklater, Peretz, Rydell
I was predisposed to dislike this year’s Oscars telecast. I can admit it. Even since the Academy’s baffling announcement that Seth MacFarlane would be the host of their 85th awards ceremony, I’ve been on a downward trajectory of enthusiasm for … Continue reading Oscar Blight
With a bit of fortuitous timing (somewhat orchestrated, I will admit), we current sit between charts on the Sunday College Countdown feature, allowing for the accurate use of the above banner for my annual indulgence in Oscar ballot wishcasting. I’ve spent the past few weeks trickling out my choices for the best films of the year, but my compulsion for making lists doesn’t stop there. Instead, it melds with my helpless interest in the Oscars (no matter how much the Academy tries to thwart that with their baffling choice of a host for this year’s ceremony) and I arrive at … Continue reading Twenty Performances, or Hero Riva, Mon Amour
I had a very busy week at Spectrum Culture, in part because some screenings got goofed up, necessitating schedule shuffling. Specifically, Rubberneck, directed by Alex Karpovsky of Girls, ran on the day the film was released, a bit of a rarity for me. On the flip side of that, I also had a review of new Korean action film go up, after I had been turned down on two or three other titles for the release week in question. I also had a very big review go up on the music side, with an assessment of the new release from … Continue reading Spectrum Check
I hope I’m wrong and anxiously await the opportunity to be proved so, but I think we’re heading towards a dreadful Academy Awards ceremony this Sunday. I’ve adamantly disliked the selection of Seth Macfarlane as this year’s host for a variety of reasons (not just because I don’t find him or his creations funny in the slightest, but also because he’s by far the least prominent celebrity to host the program in my memory, diminishing the prestige of the whole endeavor), but it goes beyond that. Nearly every special segment of the show that’s been teased by the producers sounds … Continue reading One for Friday: The Billy Nayer Show, “Hey Boy”
There are some movies that inspire adoration from their very first moments, that simply feel exactly right. That’s what happened when I saw Wes Anderson’s sophomore effort, Rushmore. I truly thought that would be a one-of-a-kind experience from the director, especially as his very particular brand of pinched emotion and tightrope whimsy became a little more strained with every outing. Oh me of little faith. From the very beginning of Moonrise Kingdom, with Bob Balaban calmly, sagely explaining the world of New Penzance, Anderson offers a pitch-perfect delivery of an enchanting tone, spirit and rhythm that is uniquely his own, … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2012 — Number One
Michael Haneke’s Amour is about death. An elderly couple living in Paris go from a quiet, comfortable life together to a shared existence defined almost entirely by the deterioration of one of them, a progression from health to physical decrepitude … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2012 — Number Two
#46 — Nothing But a Man (Michael Roemer, 1964) It’s not as if precarious social topics weren’t tackled in American cinema prior to the nineteen-sixties, but such efforts clearly benefited from both the new, bracing levels of frankness creeping into … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Forty-Six
This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. Monday nights we went to The Cabin. We went other nights too, but Monday was when The Cabin featured Imports Night, cutting the prices of their imported beer and offering a chance to check them off on a little card until enough had been purchased and consumed to claim the trophy of a little glass mug. In Stevens Point, Wisconsin, in the early nineteen-nineties, this is what passed for high, erudite living, at … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Foster’s
