Skyscraper (Rawson Marshall Thurber, 2018). A combat veteran and former hostage rescue team operative, Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) is working as a security expert when he’s recruited to identify the shortcomings in a state of the art building in Hong … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Skyscraper; Won’t You Be My Neighbor?; Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
I’m not sure I’ve watched more than a couple minutes of Transamerica since my first viewing, and I’m skeptical about how well it holds up. If nothing else, it’s clearer by now that casting a cisgendered actress in a transgendered … Continue reading From the Archive — Transamerica
As a longtime (if occasionally lapsed) fan of superhero comic books, I’ve had mixed emotions about the mighty Marvel age of cinema. Close as it has sometimes come, the Marvel Studios machine hasn’t yet made a wholly satisfying movie, in part … Continue reading Now Playing — Captain Marvel
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. Determining the ownership of the vision behind movie advertising is tricky. There are some filmmakers who have … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — “The Limey” movie poster
With about two decades of recorded music and seven full-length studio efforts behind them, the National are somewhat burdened by their most distinctive elements. Barring a massive, likely fan-alienating reinvention, a new National song is going to exist in the … Continue reading This Week’s Model — The National, “You Had Your Soul with You”
#41 — Brie Larson as Grace Howard in Short Term 12 (Destin Daniel Cretton, 2013) Written and directed by Destin Danile Cretton, Short Term 12 is intensely focused in portraying the tender existences of people connected to a group home … Continue reading Greatish Performances #41
Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, and Lilly Wachowski, 2012). Based on the dense, woven basket David Mitchell novel of the same name, Cloud Atlas is an escalating dare as cinema. The film freely intercuts between six different plots, spanning … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up —Cloud Atlas; Margaret; Venom
When expressing admiration for an actor’s talents, it’s common — even hackneyed — to note a willingness to follow them anywhere. I’ve made this pledge, but I’ve rarely honored it. There was a time when I was prepared to make … Continue reading Now Playing — Fighting with My Family
This is a mundane review of a properly forgotten Golden Hawn vehicle from the early nineteen-nineties. The only particularly notable aspect of it, for our purposes here, is this I believe it represents the last piece of writing from my … Continue reading From the Archive — CrissCross
The Greatest Showman (Michael Gracey, 2017). The unexpected — and slow-building — success of this big screen musical at least provides gratifying evidence that modern audiences remain hungry for original material, no matter how desperately studio executives treat their production … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Greatest Showman; At Eternity’s Gate; Brute Force
Coffee for Two 