Spectrum Check

It was another fairly busy week for me over at Spectrum Culture. I contribute my first offering to the Film Dunce feature, which invites writers to watch and consider seminal movies that had previously eluded them. I confessed to having neglected the debut feature from Mike Nichols, the film adaptation of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Then I proceeded to rave about it to such a degree that it made it doubly embarrassing that I’d avoided it for so long. Then there are new movies, which led me to When We Leave, which was Germany’s official entry for … Continue reading Spectrum Check

Sell yourself short, but you’re walking so tall

1-19-2. Something about that first number…just…doesn’t….look…right…. As I’ve reported in this space, I’ve been engaged in an ongoing bout for over twenty years, putting my best guess at the Oscar nominations in the six major categories up against those of my old movie review radio show colleague. Nineteen times, I’ve conceded defeat to him. Twice, I was able to call him up and note that we had tied, though those didn’t feel like accomplishments; they felt more like leaning across the ring with my face bloodied, asserting, “You didn’t get me down, Ray!” Then, this morning, for the first time … Continue reading Sell yourself short, but you’re walking so tall

Predicting the Oscar Nominations, or The Definition of Insanity

It’s odd to be able to accurately use the phrase “decades of futility” about a personal endeavor. But the simple fact is that it was over twenty years ago the first time I challenged my friend and movie review show colleague to a duel, each of us taking a stab at predicting the Oscar nominees for the top six awards: Best Picture, Best Directing and all four acting categories. We’ve revived the skirmish nearly every year since. We’ve tied twice, he’s won nineteen times, and I’ve never won. Ever. In my tepid defense, we’re both quite good at this. It’s … Continue reading Predicting the Oscar Nominations, or The Definition of Insanity

It’s my turn to see what I can see, I hope you’ll understand, this time’s just for me

Upon further reflection, it’s not actually that difficult to figure out why Darren Aronofsky chose to follow up Black Swan by presiding over the latest cinematic adventures of Marvel Comics mainstay Wolverine. The similarities between Nina Sayers and Logan are legion. He may be able to recycle whole pages of the Swan script. Continue reading It’s my turn to see what I can see, I hope you’ll understand, this time’s just for me

Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Eight

#48 — Roxanne (Fred Schepisi, 1987) No matter what snap judgments observers may have made about him when he rose to fame in the nineteen-seventies by making balloon animals and wearing arrow-through-the-head apparatuses, Steve Martin has classic, refined tastes. It’s not just in the acquisition of art–a topic in which Martin is extremely well-versed, although New York City audiences apparently have no interest in his insights. For example, when penning his first solo screenplay after serving as one of the contributing writers on most of his prior comedies, Martin looked to a work no less venerable than the 1897 Edmond … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Eight

Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson

Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962). This beloved film classic only had its notoriety bolstered when Martin Scorsese remade it in 1991. Though my helpless affection for Scorsese is well-documented by now, I must concede that the the original is far superior, largely due to the performance of spectacularly relaxed menace by Robert Mitchum as recently sprung convict Max Cady, who decides to terrorize the prosecutor whose testimony was instrumental to his incarceration. Mitchum is so good developing a fearsome quality out of little more than the way he glares across a room or strolls into a scene that the … Continue reading Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson

Spectrum Check

This week at Spectrum Culture, I reviewed a new documentary about Phil Ochs, who I honestly first heard about when Billy Bragg released a song about him. Appropriately enough, Bragg is one of the people offerings his opinions on the late folk singer in the film. I also reviewed a new documentary about the way plastic has become an overwhelming presence, and potentially dangerous presence, in modern society. Continue reading Spectrum Check

Audiard, Curtiz, Elliot, Polanski, Vaughn

Mary and Max (Adam Elliot, 2009). A beautifully downbeat stop-motion animation feature about unlikely penpals on the opposite side of the Atlantic who correspond over a number of years, developing a moving, warm, fragile and occasionally fractured relationship. Despite the distance–or, arguably, because of it–they drawn strength and even courage from one another, muddling through the unique challenges of their respective lives in part because they’ve got a lifeline out there somewhere in the world, someone who may not understand them, but at least takes the time to try. Max, voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is an especially wonderful creation, … Continue reading Audiard, Curtiz, Elliot, Polanski, Vaughn