Gilbert, Psihoyos, Tarantino, Tyrnauer, West
Valentino: The Last Emperor (Matt Tyrnauer, 2009). This documentary tags along with the legendary designer as he prepares for a gala anniversary celebration, one that is rumored, correctly, as a precursor to retirement. Tyrnauer is given broad access to Valentino as he works, and the camera catches interactions that hint at his brilliance and volatility. The glimpse of the fashion industry at its most grand comes across as either rapturously glamorous or decadently wasteful, depending on the point of view that you tote into the viewing with you. I suppose predispositions will equally shape reactions to the understanding portrayal of … Continue reading Gilbert, Psihoyos, Tarantino, Tyrnauer, West
Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Four
There was a time when Joel and Ethan Coen were known (and, in some quarters, loathed) for the gymnastics they regularly took their camera through on the way to a finished feature, sending it racing down a bar with a … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Four
Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Forty-Four
#44 — Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh, 1996) It is a film about little lives, the sorts that are easy to bypass, assuming that the stories they hold are entirely unremarkable, that they hold no surprises, nothing worth measuring up … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Forty-Four
Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Five
War is hell. And in the first years of the twenty-first century, it’s a particular type of hell that would have eluded Dante on the most fertilely creative day. It is entirely unpredictable with rules of engagement that shift as … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Five
One for Friday: Richard Barone, “Something Happens”
When I started with this One for Friday exercise just over a year ago, I decided that I was going to try to stick with songs that were out of print and, to the best of my determination, entirely unavailable for purchase. There have been some cheats and missteps regarding that principle over these many weeks, but for the most part I’ve stuck with it. As part of the process of determining what to feature next, I have a small mental list of albums that I check with some regularity thinking that they must have slipped from the lists of … Continue reading One for Friday: Richard Barone, “Something Happens”
Take another picture with your click click click click camera
I know someone who takes pretty great pictures. You can see more if you like. (Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”) Continue reading Take another picture with your click click click click camera
Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Six
It is England in the early nineteen-sixties, a buttoned-down time and place. A girl is standing in the rain after an orchestra rehearsal when a man pulls up in his car and offers her a ride, smiling as he feigns … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Six
Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Seven
I’ve seen lots of movies made for kids, but I haven’t seen that many that are really about being a kid. Movies recast children as precocious dispensers of unlikely wisdom or junior wisecrackers, their youthful sass punched til its a … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Seven
I’m on an island and I’ve got nowhere to swim
By now it should come as no surprise to anyone that’s paid even cursory attention to these digital dispatches that I like the way Martin Scorsese makes movies. I concede this in advance not to cast doubt upon my opinion … Continue reading I’m on an island and I’ve got nowhere to swim
Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Forty-Five
#45 — Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) I started working on a movie news and review program at my college radio station in the fall of 1990. This was when Siskel & Ebert were still at the height of their popularity and influence, and my cohort and I decided that we needed some way to regularly close out of review segments, something that provided as clean and convenient of a button as the famed Chicago critics’ pronouncements of which way their respective thumbs were pointing. We settled on a star rating, using the four star scale that seemed most common … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Forty-Five
