Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Without delving into the … Continue reading Laughing Matters — How Lord of the Rings Should Have Ended
Leaving Neverland (Dan Reed, 2019). Working with a landslide of troubling evidence and an abundance of cautious patience, British documentarian lays out a compelling, convincing case that Michael Jackson regularly perpetrated sexual abuse on boys that came into his orbit … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Leaving Neverland; Blaze; Denial
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. A long time ago, a studio’s marketing team was charged with convincing the general public that an … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — “Star Wars” trailer
Bad Company (Robert Benton, 1972). A relatively obscure entry in the legion of films from the late-nineteen-sixties and early-nineteen-seventies that sought to strip away the romanticizing so entrenched in the Western genre. A young man named Drew (Barry Brown) flees … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Bad Company; Abacus: Small Enough to Jail; Son of Saul
Documentary filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar live in Dayton, Ohio, one of many Midwestern U.S. cities that has historically counted on manufacturing to provide gainful employment for the citizenry. When the community’s auto manufacturing facility shut its doors, in … Continue reading Now Playing — American Factory
The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968). Funded by French broadcasters, The Immortal Story was one of the featured directed by Orson Welles after he’d been effectively exiled from Hollywood. Under thick makeup better suited for the stage, Welles also plays … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Immortal Story; Operation Finale; The Blue Gardenia
#45 — Peter Fonda as Ulee Jackson in Ulee’s Gold (Victor Nuñez, 1997) For most of his tenure as a public figure, Peter Fonda was a better icon than actor. He served as the more genial familial representative of the … Continue reading Greatish Performances #45
There are many lamentable choices strewn about the history of the Academy Awards, especially when subsequent career choices of individual winners cast a dank shadow on their trophies. Although I’m loathe to offer it as a definitive conclusion, it’s possible … Continue reading The Unwatchables — Savages
The Uninvited (Lewis Allen, 1944). Based on a Dorothy Macardle novel, director Lewis Allen’s feature directorial debut is widely cited as the first movie to depict ghosts as spectral entities that might actually exist in the world, moving amidst living … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Uninvited; The Last Black Man in San Francisco; Tickled
It’s a simple tenet, too often ignored. The more specific a work of art, the more likely the piece resonates with a thoroughly enmeshed truthfulness that approaches the universal. A film doesn’t need to be autobiographical to qualify, nor is … Continue reading Now Playing — The Farewell
Coffee for Two 