In describing his approach to acting, Martin Landau once employed a story about a drunk and a sculptor. In Landau’s recounting, the sculptor is putting the finishing touches on a statue of elephant. In order to get the drunk to … Continue reading Martin Landau: 1928 – 2017
Continuing with mini-series launched last week that excavates the reviews from the bygone “Movies That Shoulda Been Summer Blockbusters” special episode of 90FM’s The Reel Thing, this is what I wrote about the comedy The Man with Two Brains, directed … Continue reading From the Archive — The Man with Two Brains
Cops and Robbers (Aram Avakian, 1973). This jagged comedy of resignation hails from the era of U.S. cinema when depictions of New York City were so gritty that it seemed as if wringing the celluloid like a towel would cause … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up: Cops and Robbers; Murder, He Says; Tower
We are now in the tenth year of the Marvel Age of Movies, and who can argue against the astonishing influence of the comic book publisher turned crafter of cinematic crescendos? All through that resounding success, it had to rankle … Continue reading Now Playing — Spider-Man: Homecoming
Launching a two-man movie review program in 1990 meant our weekly effort followed the template set by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. There was no question about it. That included the occasional creation of themed shows. In the case of … Continue reading From the Archive — Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The Beguiled, the new film from director Sofia Coppola, is based on a novel written by Thomas Cullinan, originally published in 1966. Realistically, though, it probably owes more to the first attempt at taking the story from page to screen: … Continue reading Now (and Then) Playing: The Beguiled
When I stop to really think about the state of modern movies, one shortcoming is perplexing above all others. How is it that there are so few creations that evidence an abundant, overwhelming, crushing love of moviemaking itself? We’re now … Continue reading Now Playing: Baby Driver
The title character of the new film Okja is a “super-pig.” In the bizarre, futuristic (though set in modern-day) vision of writer-director Bong Joon-Ho, an American corporation launches a publicity stunt competition to have odd, porcine animals — supposedly discovered in Chile, though that assertion is suspect from the jump — raised by individuals scattered all across the globe. After a decade, the creatures are to be evaluated in a glorified pageant before beings added to the assembly line of food production. Bong renders his story at a mad careen that resembles an inability to entirely setting on a general … Continue reading Now Playing: Okja
This is a short one (it was originally offered as part of a set of capsule reviews), but it represents the first time I wrote about an Edgar Wright movie. In part because of the hit-and-run nature of the review, I didn’t write about his direction much. Truthfully, it wasn’t until Wright’s next film that his visual acumen and storytelling ingenuity really started to dazzle me. While I will elaborate in a few days, I’ll promptly acknowledge that I’m revisiting this particular piece because Wright has just delivered what I’m confident will shake out as one of the best films of … Continue reading From the Archive: Hot Fuzz
Privilege (Peter Watkins, 1967). This is exactly what I want a movie with a 1967 copyright date to be. The sole credited screenplay of novelist Norman Bogner, Privilege follows the story of Steven Shorter (played by Manfred Mann lead singer Paul Jones), a rock singer who is coopted by British authorities so they can insidiously control the upstart youth culture. Set in a near future, the film is groovy satire, just prescient enough to avoid being little more than an artifact of distant days when the counterculture seeped into cinema with sporadic success. Jones is a middling actor, but he … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up: Privilege, Sully, Indignation
