Once again, the “From the Archive” feature brings you the wildly forgettable cinema of the early nineteen-nineties. Around the time Company Business was released, in 1991, Gene Hackman was openly speculating that retirement was imminent. This is the sort of … Continue reading From the Archive: Company Business
Oh! What a Lovely War (Richard Attenborough, 1969). The feature directorial debut of Richard Attenborough adapts a hit British musical that used era-appropriate songs to slyly satirize the pretty geopolitical messiness that fed into and then prolonged World War I. Though initially intriguing in its brash theatricality, the film’s conceits quickly prove to be stiff and overly distancing. It begins to come across as a revue with only the thinnest of through lines, especially as it stretches to a overlong running time pushing two and a half hours. There are scattered pleasures, led by Maggie Smith as a bawdy music hall … Continue reading Attenborough, Feig, Peyton, Tourneur, Werker
The intent of this feature is to post something I’ve written that hasn’t previously shown up in this digital space, but I make exceptions on rare occasions. This is one of them, just so I can put a caboose on the train of Trivia Kickoff Movie writing. After I posted about Swingers earlier this week, a different Trivia disciple mentioned he thought that was the best Kickoff Movie that ideally suited the event, but that the best overall movie to fill that role for the station over the years was The Ice Storm. Without double-checking the list of films that … Continue reading From the Archive: Being John Malkovich
This coming weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about memorable answers in past years. For this go-around, I’m further commemorating an anniversary. The weekend before the contest, the radio station sponsoring Trivia holds a midnight movie screening as a kickoff event, a practice that just celebrated its twenty-fifth straight year. Though it had been done a couple times prior to my tenure at the student-run radio station, I was the one who revived the practice, drawing upon my dual status as an on-air movie critic and a popcorn slinger … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day: Magic Carpet Airlines
This coming weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about memorable answers in past years. For this go-around, I’m further commemorating an anniversary. The weekend before the contest, the radio station sponsoring Trivia holds a midnight movie screening as a kickoff event, a practice that just celebrated its twenty-fifth straight year. Though it had been done a couple times prior to my tenure at the student-run radio station, I was the one who revived the practice, drawing upon my dual status as an on-air movie critic and a popcorn slinger … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day: The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus
This coming weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about memorable answers in past years. For this go-around, I’m further commemorating an anniversary. The weekend before the contest, the radio station sponsoring Trivia holds a midnight movie screening as a kickoff event, a practice that just celebrated its twenty-fifth straight year. Though it had been done a couple times prior to my tenure at the student-run radio station, I was the one who revived the practice, drawing upon my dual status as an on-air movie critic and a popcorn slinger … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
This coming weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about memorable answers in past years. For this go-around, I’m further commemorating an anniversary. The weekend before the contest, the radio station sponsoring Trivia holds a midnight movie screening as a kickoff event, a practice that just celebrated its twenty-fifth straight year. Though it had been done a couple times prior to my tenure at the student-run radio station, I was the one who revived the practice, drawing upon my dual status as an on-air movie critic and a popcorn slinger … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day: The S.S. Cooney
Shortly after the debut of the radio show The Reel Thing, the film review program I co-hosted from 1990 to 1993, it felt like we were inundated with Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. We weren’t, but there were two within our first few months on the air. That felt like punishment enough. As a general rule, even the worst movies got one star on our four-star rating scale. If I dropped below that, I was really serious about how much I hated it. Deran Sarafian, the director of this film, went on to be a prolific, respectable television director. The screenplay is … Continue reading From the Archive: Death Warrant
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. Appropriately, the conversation took place on Facebook Messenger. I was discussing Unfriended with my friend Khaetlyn, who had recommended the film in the first place, offering the assurance that it was far more than the trashy, cheapo found footage horror film it appeared to be from all the floridly urgent promotion around it. Shortly after seeing it, I was about to let her know that she was correct, when she framed her curiosity about my reaction … Continue reading Then Playing: Unfriended
For those heading out to theater this weekend to “just get this over with,” helping elevate the latest Zack Snyder joint to ludicrously triumphant box office numbers, I dig into the archive to offer the gentle reminder that it didn’t have to … Continue reading From the Archive: The Dark Knight
Coffee for Two 