Given that he emerged as a movie star in the nineteen-eighties, the era when sequels emerged as Hollywood’s favorite toy, it’s remarkable that Tom Cruise was a solid twenty years into his screen career before he appeared in a film … Continue reading Then Playing — Four Impossible Missions
Jason Reitman has a new movie out this week, reportedly an effort that finds him back on track following a couple widely derided cinematic disasters. When I was first applying my resharpened film critic pencil, I wrote about Reitman’s feature … Continue reading From the Archive — Thank You for Smoking
I thought by now I’d already transferred any and all writing I’ve done on superhero movies into this space, but it turns out I was mistaken. Perhaps it was a internalized defense mechanism preventing me from even taking a moment … Continue reading From the Archive — X-Men: Last Stand
I’m a little weary and preoccupied (and maybe a little tipsy) at the moment this posts. There is a documentary out there in the world that helps explain why. This was my stab at reviewing the film shortly after seeing … Continue reading From the Archive — Triviatown
Last week, I dug out the old review for Clint Eastwood’s The Flags of Our Fathers. It’s time for his follow-up. Since I initially took the occasion of revisiting these reviews of Eastwood films to call into question some of the more overt veneration of his skills as a director, I now feel obligated to add that this effort nabbed a reasonably secure place on my top ten list for the year it was released. Well it’s a damn sight better than Flags of Our Fathers, I’ll say that. The companion to director Clint Eastwood’s earlier film about the battle of Iwo Jima … Continue reading From the Archive — Letters from Iwo Jima
Clint Eastwood has a new film out. It is not being especially well-received. In general, I’ve long found the movie critic discourse around Eastwood’s directorial career to be a little perplexing. I’ve liked many of his films, including proud placement of a few on various lists of laudatory accomplishment. But to refer to Eastwood as one of the great filmmakers (I remember at least once critic, circa Mystic River, positing that Eastwood was the greatest American director then working) requires turning a blind eye to a lot of flawed material, even if one generously ignores the absolute worst efforts. I think … Continue reading From the Archive — Flags of Our Fathers
Look, I’m well aware that the only movie anyone cares about this weekend is set quite some time ago in a galaxy that’s a significant distance from ours. Ideally, I’d devote this weekly exercise in excavation to an relevant piece … Continue reading From the Archive — Pan’s Labyrinth
Writing about Alex Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God the other day got me thinking about this earlier documentary that shows another side of the way religion and zealotry can be leveraged into callous exploitation of … Continue reading From the Archive: Jesus Camp
On the occasion of Last Flag Flying, the new Richard Linklater feature, arriving in theaters — at least in New York City — here are, I believe, all of the reviews of the Texas filmmaker’s work that I’ve written, but … Continue reading From the Archive — Richard Linklater films
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
Coffee for Two 