I can’t think of another director that successfully mixes the tactile and the intellectual more often than David Cronenberg. In his very best films–for me, that means Dead Ringers, eXistenZ and The History of Violence–there’s a remarkable thematic balance between … Continue reading Like a drug that threatens to take my life, lust is a cancer, love is a vice
I had a more reasonable week at Spectrum Culture, contributing just a couple things and only one full-length review. The latter was for the film Miss Bala, which I’ve been anxious to see since it drew rave reviews at Cannes. In general, I’ve been trying to keep a closer eye on various festival reviews so I can snap up the more obscure potentially strong offerings after they’ve gone through the arduous circuit. That’s starting to pay dividends and Gerardo Naranjo’s incisive film was one of the first prizes of that effort. I also contributed to our weekly List Inconsequential feature, … Continue reading Spectrum Check
#47 — Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976) By most assessments, the glory of American cinema in the nineteen-seventies was largely a result of major studios turning over significant dollars to daring directors who then spun that money into edgy … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Forty-Seven
I have no doubt that The Artist will prevail in this year’s Best Picture race at the Academy Awards. None whatsoever. Michel Hazanavicius’s tribute to the distantly bygone glamor of silent picture storytelling by making his own black-and-white, almost entirely … Continue reading Baby, baby, I’ll never let you down, I can’t stand another sound
It’s probably too late for me to tell you that I would have had Terrence Malick listed as a surprise Best Director nominee had we done predictions this year, right? Right. If you had trouble getting onto IMDb this morning, it’s because was trying to figure out who the hell Demián Bichir was at the very same time. Okay, that might be a little unfair; Bichir was also a Screen Actors Guild Best Actor nominee for A Better Life, but he was still one of the more surprising announcements this morning. In same category, Gary Oldman became an Oscar nominees … Continue reading It’s smelly and cold, but I wouldn’t trade it for a big pot o’ gold
The Oscar nominations arrive tomorrow. Usually I would be sitting in front of the television with a sheet of paper hastily scrawling down the honorees in the key categories as they’re announced, giving me the data needed to do some rapid-fire calculations. Somewhere nearby I had my predictions and those of my cohort from the movie review show we did on 90FM in Stevens Point what now seems an eon ago. Once the announcement was complete, I quickly tallied up which one of the two of us did a better job forecasting the nominations. Overwhelmingly, he was the victor. I … Continue reading Anything ragged or rotten or rusty
I knew was a little extra stressed out this week for a reason. It just occurred to me, as I prepared this post, that I actually wrote a lot for Spectrum Culture this week. I’ll start on the movie side, where I claimed responsibility for reviewing the directorial debut of Vincent D’Onofrio. This was in part because he’s enough of an oddball that I was very curious as to what he’d do behind the camera. I also have a marital obligation to acquire a horror movie for review from time to time and this one had the added curiosity of … Continue reading Spectrum Check
#48 — Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977) It’s difficult to write about Stroszeg without caving in and turning the whole thing into a prolonged essay on all the distinctive elements that make Werner Herzog’s films, the good and the bad, so … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Forty-Eight
I’ve had a similar reaction to every film adaptation of a John le Carré work that I’ve ever seen. I find it admirable and fascinating in the moment, taking special notice of the careful consideration of the plain mechanics of … Continue reading The call to arms you liken to a whisper
Spectrum Culture was back in full wing this week, which meant that my words were all over the place as well. I was especially busy on the movie review front. First I weighed in on a highly problematic drama built around grief and guilt and contrived tension. We’re in that weird stasis zone in between the end of year Oscar fodder (much of which I can’t get screeners of because they’re being highly protective of pirating, even though they send them out as freely as Bed Bath and Beyond coupons to major critics and guild members) and the launch of … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Coffee for Two 