These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. Horror movies present different opportunities when it comes to their marketing, at least when it comes to … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — “The Howling” movie poster
The debut of the new Netflix series Mindhunter has brought a fresh wave of attention on filmmaker David Fincher, who seems a little less glum than usual as he makes the promotional rounds. The accompanying newsy tidbits — he almost … Continue reading From the Archive: Alien 3
Compliance (Craig Zobel, 2012). Based, incredibly enough, on a true story, Compliance shows the ugly susceptibility people have in the face of authority, even when those giving the orders have done nothing to prove they deserve to be followed. On … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Compliance; The Bad Sleep Well; The Devil’s Bride
Since the new Noah Baumbach movie, The Meyerowitz Chronicles, has arrived, the time seems right to dig out this old review of the director’s fourth feature, released ten years ago. It was Baumbach’s follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, his most successful film, by several measures, to that point, amping up expectations for what proved to be a fairly sour cinematic experience. That was Baumbach’s goal, to be sure, but the segue into Bergmanesue drama didn’t particularly suit him. While generally very good, Margot at the Wedding perhaps could have used a little less dedicated approach to maintaining … Continue reading From the Archive: Margot at the Wedding
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a film to be laudably ambitious, resolutely intelligent, clompingly obvious, and archly indifferent at the same time. But here we have Blade Runner 2049, a distant sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 science … Continue reading Now Playing — Blade Runner 2049
I don’t have much to add to the review below (originally published at my former online home), except to note that every great director deserves to have a final film as perfect of a closing statement as this one is … Continue reading From the Archive: A Prairie Home Companion
On September 20, 1973, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, with great ceremonial adornments, strode to the center of the playing field of the Houston Astrodome, where a tennis court had been put in place. The event was billed as … Continue reading Now Playing: Battle of the Sexes
I remember when Stephen King’s novel It was first published, in 1986. Then only a dozen years into his career as a novelist — but already claiming nearly twenty books to his credit — King was an unstoppable force in … Continue reading Now Playing: It
As Battle of the Sexes makes its initial, limited-engagement foray into theaters this weekend, I double-checked the filmography of co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, figuring that I’d been largely tuning out their work since their feature debut, Little Miss Sunshine, … Continue reading From the Archive: Little Miss Sunshine
Wind River (Taylor Sheridan, 2017). With just a handful of credits for major creative roles behind the camera, Taylor Sheridan is already establishing a pretty compelling philosophical thesis about the way the world works. In Wind River, those who exist … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Wind River; Ship of Fools; Demolition
Coffee for Two 