Writer-director Judd Apatow’s new movie Funny People has a lot of dick jokes in it. A lot. If you’re an undiscerning fan of dick jokes, finding each and every one of them hysterically funny, then this movie may actually be … Continue reading Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now, I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again
#44 — Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie, 2007) Movies are routinely celebrated for making the impossible happen. This praise is usually reserved for spectacles of special effects that send superheroes slicing across the sky or warriors facing off … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-Four
So much attention and outrage has been leveled at the sorry state of the American food industry in recent years, from the meticulous reporting of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation to Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me up through the hugely … Continue reading Warning sign, warning sign, I see it but I pay it no mind
#45 — Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, 2004) It is practically a necessity to begin any discussion or celebration of a Mike Leigh film by detailing his unique methodology. As is well-established, Leigh begins by assembling his actors and assigning them … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-Five
Kung Fu Panda (Mark Osborne and John Stevenson, 2008). in the realm of computer animated features, there is Pixar and then there’s everyone else. Others have reaped box office success, but there’s an broad, enduring gap when it comes to artistry. Dreamworks Animation is arguably the outfit working most diligently to cross the divide. Kung Fu Panda doesn’t accomplish that, in part because the storytelling is as by-the-numbers as it gets, but it does boast a visual sense that is smoothly well-realized, generally engaging, and, at times, very striking. In particular, the sequences involving the elaborate prison created for the … Continue reading She’s making movies on location, she don’t know what it means
#46 — The Savages (Tamara Jenkins, 2007) The Savages may be an ideal title for a tale of domestic dysfunction. Savage is the shared last name of the compact family unit at the heart of the film, but, of course, … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-Six
Michael Mann likes to make movies about men. Men who speak tersely and intently, conveying their views and plans with a creased-brow seriousness. Men who stride purposefully through the world. Men who stare each down across diner tables or through … Continue reading I got so much trouble on my mind, I refuse to lose
So the cinematic adventures of the world’s most popular boy wizard come one film closer to the end. Harry Potter and his favorite classmates at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry continue their academic pursuits while remaining vigilant against the … Continue reading Gettin’ down with your royal badness
#47 — Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002) Far From Heaven is an exercise in adoration. It is an unabashed, spellbound, swooning tribute to the technicolor melodramas of the 1950’s, particularly those directed by Douglas Sirk. The titles alone reverberate with grandiloquence: Magnificent Obsession, Written on the Wind, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, and the film that served as the most direct inspiration for Far From Heaven, All That Heaven Allows. Sirk’s films are famous for washing the screen with vibrant colors, sending the actors into teary-eyed overdrive with anguished dialogue, and approaching social issues with … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-Seven
You know, I’d actually respect the team behind Roland Emmerich’s next movie more if they just went ahead and used the approach taken by this mocking revamp of their trailer. Why not! (Posted simultaneously to “Drilling Holes in the Wall.”) Continue reading A tattoo burned for everything I’ve ever wanted and lost
Coffee for Two 