While all movies strive for authenticity, there’s an added expectation of voracious adherence to the truth when it comes to documentaries, even as advocacy pieces become more and more prevalent. And yet there’s also a growing commitment to transforming non-fiction … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2011 — Number Eight
My favorite moment in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive–the moment that encapsulates everyone that’s special about this reinvention of the old-school action movie–isn’t especially iconic or gripping in a conventional way. It’s not the elevator attack or some burst of shocking … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2011 – Number Nine
12. “Up There Down There” by Patti Smith It was a big deal when Patti Smith released the album Dream of Life in 1988. It had been almost ten years since the last album that bore her name and Smith had spent the interim living a life of domestic serenity in the suburbs of Michigan with her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith, and their two children together. She had gone from a seismic force practically reinventing rock ‘n’ roll with the sheer passion of her vocals and the jagged anger of her songwriting to a brilliant phantom who largely sat out … Continue reading College Countdown: First Billboard Top 20 Modern Rock Tracks, Fall 1988, 12 and 11
I reviewed two very different films for Spectrum Culture this week. First, I tackled a new release, writing a review of the new film from Valérie Donzelli, which was France’s official entry to the Best Foreign Film category at this year’s Oscars. Like everyone else, I’m certain that A Separation is going to win the trophy, and I trust the critical consensus that deems the film the worthiest of the honor. But the other nominees must have been damn good to keep this effort from the final nomination list. The other film I covered couldn’t have been more different. We’re … Continue reading Spectrum Check
I get sick of songs. It happens. And it especially happened back when my main resource for hearing music comprised of a handful of commercial radio stations and a couple of cable channels filling their programming schedule exclusively with music videos. The cycle of label-directed redundancy wasn’t as bad as it is now, but it was still oppressive enough that songs shifted from novel to familiar to smash-that-record-against-the-fucking-wall well before various programmers grew disinterested in indulging in saturation airplay. The list of qualifying songs I could compose is too long and horrifying to ponder, but I will openly acknowledge that … Continue reading One for Friday: David Baerwald, “All for You”
Steven Soderbergh has made it clear that the movie Haywire exists solely because he saw Gina Carano in one of her mixed martial arts fights on television. I’d like to think he also spent part of that particular evening hitting … Continue reading But how can I help it, if they break then they break, when my hands are untied they’re entitled to shake
It really seemed that Errol Morris had decided to devote his considerable talents as a documentary filmmaker to heavier, more deeply important fare, never again to revisit the sort of offbeat stories and individuals that he originally made his name … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2011 – Number Ten
A few weeks back, I had a conversation (well, an email exchange) with a friend of mine about the way I title these various features that prove I know how to count backwards while also highlighting my favored films from certain stretches of time. Specifically, we were debating the use of plainly assertive statements of value in the title of the posts. There are no qualifiers, no hedges, just the flat insistence that these are the “Top Ten” or “Top Fifty” films of the designated time frame. This was a very deliberate choice when I first starting writing such pieces … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2011 — An Introduction
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
