These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. When high-powered director Robert Altman presided over an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, one of … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — The Long Goodbye movie poster
I remember going to the theater for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the feature film debut of Guy Ritchie. Its U.S. release was in the spring of 1999, when indie-inclined screens were still wallpapered with all manner of gruff, … Continue reading The Unwatchables — The Gentlemen
Blithe Spirit (David Lean, 1945). Adapted from Noël Coward’s 1941 play of the same name, Blithe Spirit is a mere wisp of a movie comedy that generates domestic drama from supernatural falderal. Writer Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison) invites a daffy … Continue reading Then Playing — Blithe Spirit; Layer Cake; Algiers
Years before Lin-Manuel Miranda cemented his place in the pantheon of musical theater by creating an unlikely sensation with the adaptation of a weighty historical biography, he worked with playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes to tell a story that took place … Continue reading Now Playing — In the Heights
I argue, with some regularity, that modern Hollywood horror films falter in large part because they don’t take their scenarios seriously. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It has me thinking I might be wrong about that. The new … Continue reading Now Playing — The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. One of the main things I miss about haunting my local movie theater is the procession of … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Where the Wild Things Are trailer
For a long time, Clint Eastwood’s directorial career was seen as a lark, an indulgence to keep a movie star happy so he’d occasionally acquiesce to playing Harry Callahan again. Across his first twelve films as a director, Eastwood’s films … Continue reading Actors’ Director — Clint Eastwood
‘Whoa, this is crazy’: L.A. teen punks the Linda Lindas on going viral (just before finals) by August Brown Playing at the L.A. Public Library is the new South by Southwest, it seems. The live set by youthful punk act … Continue reading Outside Reading — We Rebuild What You Destroy edition
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. As the Hollywood hype machine does its thing, desperately attempting to revive the practice of summer moviegoing, … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade teaser trailer
Sinead O’Connor Remembers Things Differently by Amanda Hess This fantastic profile of Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor, who also goes by the name Shuhada Sadaqat, offers a definitive, paper-of-record pardon of the artist’s notorious rending of a religious figure’s photograph. Better … Continue reading Outside Reading — Very Much an Irish Woman edition
Coffee for Two 