Thanks to a rigorous strategy of willful media blindness (which is mightily difficult for me to pull off in the midst of my almost compulsive consumption of the entertainment news and reviews blipping across the internet), I sat down to … Continue reading Now Playing: The Lobster
Last week, when I was mulling over which old review should be plopped into this space, I came very close to selecting I’m Not There, as if something was nudging me to do so. Maybe the scraggly bard of Hibbing, … Continue reading From the Archive: I’m Not There
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of pop art. As someone who once strung trailers onto the front of films for a multi-screen theater (as if there’s any other kind these days), I have a special affection for teasers that were clearly shot separately from the features they promoted, that stood as their own little movies. Appreciating the extra effort, I opted for those over frantic assemblages of clips any chance I got. Once it was out of my control, I spiritually extended a special … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: “Strange Days” trailer
This was originally posted at my former digital home. I don’t have much to add today, save for this: Every great director deserves to have a film this strong as their final cinematic statement. It’s already become commonplace to build … Continue reading From the Archive: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
#24 — Thora Birch as Enid in Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001) Expert portrayal of the precise brand of withering contempt found in the American teen-aged girl is, by definition, a talent of fleeting utility. While Thora Birch may have had a few other impediments in her quest for career longevity, it’s not implausible that she would have difficult time pushing past her young adult years simply because she so perfectly embodied a particular stretch in late adolescence, when the intellect slightly outpaces maturity, which in turn leads to a complete certainty that the rest of culture is disastrously backward and inane. Birch … Continue reading Greatish Performances #24
I think a case can be made that Captain America: Civil War is mistitled. The skirmish promised there is duly presented, with the crummy crossover comic book series with which it shares its name thankfully providing only the barest of inspiration. Where … Continue reading Now Playing: Captain America: Civil War
I usually reserve the longer reviews for films still playing in theaters, but sometimes a title I’ve caught up on later merits a few extra words. Marlon Brando wasn’t well past his peak when he turned in his only feature film directorial effort, but the ground beneath his feet was crumbling. At the time shooting began on One-Eyed Jacks, late in 1958, Brando was less than five years past the triumphant On the Waterfront, and he’d nabbed a Best Actor Academy Award nomination while the same calendar hung on the wall (doing so for 1957’s Sayonara). But there was also hints of the … Continue reading Then Playing: One-Eyed Jacks
This was written for The Pointer, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. Other headlines in the same issue, published in November of 1992, include “Videos produced on Point’s award winning recycling,” “Freeze tuition costs!” and … Continue reading From the Archive: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Vacation (John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, 2015). Like any Freaks and Geeks devotee, I’m rooting for Sam Weir as he transitions from actor to one half of a comedy filmmaking team, but this thing is hideous. A supposed continuation of the Vacation franchise, it’s more of a lazy remake of the 1983 Harold Ramis film, replacing what minor vestiges of wit it carried with hollow raunch. There’s nothing inherently wrong with raw, audacious comedy, but there’s still an obligation to actually structure humor. Instead, Daley and Goldstein have a kid hurl blue insults at his older brother and … Continue reading Daley and Goldstein, Dougherty, Letterman, Ritchie, Silverstein
Everybody Wants Some!!, the new film written and directed by Richard Linklater, is being officially pitched as a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused, the belatedly beloved sophomore effort from the filmmaker. Dazed and Confused was something of a dud … Continue reading Now Playing: Everybody Wants Some!!
Coffee for Two 