With Swiss Army Man, the directing duo that bills themselves as simply “Daniels” succumb to a very common shortcoming of first-time feature filmmakers: they’re better at showmanship than storytelling. Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan wrote and directed the film, which begin … Continue reading Now Playing: Swiss Army Man
I find it a little remarkable that I have no reviews of Steven Spielberg films from the time I cohosted the movie review show on college radio station WWSP-90FM. During the time our program was airing weekly, the prolific filmmaker signed his name to exactly one directorial effort: Hook, released in 1991. Given when it landed on the release calendar, it’s possible we didn’t even cover it on the show. (A December 11th release date means we could have already been off in correlation to the school’s winter break). Instead, in order to populate the “From the Archive” feature with … Continue reading From the Archive: Munich
This review showed up within the first few months of The Reel Thing, the movies reviews and news show I co-hosted on WWSP-90FM, from 1990 – 1993. I was clearly still adjusting my parameters on the star rating, since there are an awful lot of complaints leveled to land on the clear recommendation of three stars. In my modern fact-checking, I discovered I used the wrong name for the young actress Hillary Wolf, so it’s sort of a mess all around. That bit of research also brought me to the tidbit that Wolf went on to be a judo champion … Continue reading From the Archive: Waiting for the Light
This week has been exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure. And I’ve barely progressed into the week as I write this. (Super secret DVD commentary back story: this post was not written on Thursday!) I am still figuring out how to balance my new vocation with the modest and yet relentless demands of Coffee for Two. (Note: I’m aware that the relentless aspect is is entirely self-imposed.) As I continue the extended process of figuring out how to balance all of this, I may cheat a bit. Here’s a cheat, but, I think, a worthwhile one. I want to use my … Continue reading Programming Note
When I wrote reviews for The Pointer, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, I typically focused on a pair of films, doing my level best to thematically tie them together. As my rudimentary explanation of auteur theory here makes clear, there were plenty of instances when my attempts yielded strained results. The artistic success or failure of a film is often attributed chiefly to the director. Despite the acknowledged importance of fine writing and convincing acting, the director shoulders the majority of criticism because it is their job to tie everything together and strengthen the weak spots. … Continue reading From the Archive: Hero and Mr. Baseball
#25 — Kate Beckinsale as Charlotte Pingress in The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman, 1998) I tend to think of The Last Days of Disco as the film that helped Whit Stillman loosen up, as if the propulsive beats of the titular musical genre sent his creative techniques into spinning, swirling revelry. Much as I admire his two preceding films, Metropolitan and Barcelona, their intense refinement can play like reticence. While fully maintaining his capacity for smart, careful, telling language, Stillman brings a little more sweat and glitter to his storytelling, a probing quality that carries the film deeper into the characters’ faults … Continue reading Greatish Performances #25
A little more than twenty years ago, Whit Stillman and Jane Austen were hot on the filmmaking circuit at the same time. The former was the writer-director behind a pair of very well-regarded and somewhat atypical indie house hits, both … Continue reading Now Playing: Love & Friendship
This was written for my former digital home. That’s about all I have to add this week. The new documentary Wordplay is strongest in the final section, when its focus remains fixed on the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament held annually … Continue reading From the Archive: Wordplay
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. There was a time when I loved seeking out new movie posters. Anytime I make the trek to one of the multi-screen bunkers on the edges of Madison, I prowled the hallways looking for new additions to the wall. It got even better when I managed a movie theater. Every day the mail delivery would bring a new handful of slender cardboard tubes stuffed with rolled up one-sheets. For me, it was a like a magical Christmas tree … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: “Flesh and Bone” poster
There was a time when Premiere magazine was invaluable. When the digital asphalt was still drying on the information superhighway, coverage of movies wasn’t nearly as pervasive as it is now. Besides the obvious lack of anxiously competing websites, the mainstream media was also less likely to sully their pages or airwaves with excited previews of upcoming films or, even more sordid, widespread discussion of box office expectations and results. While Premiere was hardly the sole outlet providing such information, they were generally doing it better and more inventively than anyone else. For example, when it came time to offer a preview of the … Continue reading From the Archive: Dying Young
Coffee for Two 