#29 — American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013) Rife with absurdity and energized by misguided bravado and crass capitalistic scheming, David O. Russell’s darkly comic rendering of the FBI’s Abscam sting operation would feel off if it didn’t have “American” … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Twenty-Nine
If there’s one thing that’s absolutely certain about a project that was developed by Oliver Stone and then given to Spike Lee to rework, it’s that the resulting film is not going to lack for ideas or ambition. Da 5 … Continue reading Now Playing — Da 5 Bloods
#30 — The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019) The best movies sit and resonate with a viewer, as if taking up permanent residence in the soul. Even as I write that, I understand the sentimental is almost unbearably syrupy, instilling in … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty
The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961). A horror movie that favors spooky atmosphere over jolting shocks, The Innocents is adapted from the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw. Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) takes a position as a governess at … Continue reading Then Playing — The Innocents; Marshall; Things to Come
America, This is Your Chance by Michelle Alexander Well, this is the article I’ve been waiting for. There are few people more qualified to comment on this particular moment in U.S. history than Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Fire This Time edition
#31 — Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017) A common failing of first-time feature directors is a tendency to put every last notion they have into a film that can’t possibly hold them all. The opportunity to make a full-length movie … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-One
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 sad side effects of so much of modern serious filmmaking begin done under the … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — The 13th movie poster
#32 — Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012) Violence begets violence. In the longstanding cinematic algebra that posits the swinging of fists and the pulling of triggers as the readiest and surest solutions to all manner of problems — such as the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Two
“Can We Live?” by Tananarive Due Now that we’re almost halfway through this calendar year that epitomizes the curse of interesting times, it’s useful to remember that the the cataclysms of now have historic precursors that we can learn from. … Continue reading Outside Reading — Precedented edition
#33 — Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015) In the nineteen-fifties, a young woman from Ireland moves to the United States. Ellis (Saoirse Ronan) has few prospects and only the slenderest of connections to other Irish immigrants in the big city she … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Three
Coffee for Two 