I frankly loved Richard Linklater’s 1995 film, Before Sunrise, but I would lukewarm on the widely praised 2004 follow-up, Before Sunset. It was still delightfully hyper-verbal and hit the right notes of romantic cynicism, but the film was also a … Continue reading We’re gonna cause talk and suspicion, give an exhibition
It’s been a couple weeks since I provided an update on my doings at Spectrum Culture, which would usually mean a pile-up of links to share. For a variety of reasons, that’s not the case. Instead, I have only the … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936). My instinct is to refer to this as an early Alfred Hitchcock film, but he was a decade and almost two dozen films into his career by this point. What’s more, this was released the year after The 39 Steps, so while Hitchcock may not have been The Master yet, he was a seasoned, skilled and respected filmmaker already. This was toward the end of the run of his British-made films, and there’s a certain added restraint–even somewhat pedestrian quality–to the narrative about a terrorist group staging bombings around London. It notably adheres to all of … Continue reading Cianfrance, Hitchcock, Levine, Sonnenfeld, Zinnemann
In many respects, Frances Ha is a perfectly logical follow-up to Noah Baumbach’s 2010 film, Greenberg. Putting aside observations about the newer film’s sense of hope being gradually thwarted that makes it feel like the cautionary prequel to the earlier … Continue reading These things I know, they come and go like laughing
The Memorial Day holiday made for a truncated week at Spectrum Culture, but a convergence of minor issues meant that I had the rare instance of two different new movie reviews go up. First, I wrote on Hannah Arendt, about a writer and intellectual who covered the Adolf Eichmann trial for The New Yorker. Keeping with the heavy subject matter, I reviewed Shadow Dancer, centered on the The Troubles in Ireland, its own sort of period piece, taking place in the mid-nineties. Probably the most notable aspect of this film is the director, James Marsh. He won the Best Documentary … Continue reading Spectrum Check
The 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise, directed by J.J. Abrams, was better than any such pillaging of pop culture’s past has a right to be. Ingeniously drawing on the exact time travel tropes that contributed to some of … Continue reading I was so nervous I shook my head, it was a struggle but there was pleasure at the end
My writing week with Spectrum Culture started with a look backward. Our Revisit series cycles through all the music writers, and my turn came up. I always have an extremely difficult time figuring out what to write on for this feature, usually defaulting to an album I know inside out. This time, that meant a few words on my favorite Billy Bragg album. For the film reviews, I wrote on new horror movie, directed by Katie Asleton and written by her husband, Mark Duplass. I thought it was solid, though I should note that the person in our household with … Continue reading Spectrum Check
So while I spend my morning wishing some rain away, I’ll share the pieces I contributed to Spectrum Culture this week. I was present in both the film and movie sections, including a review of the sophomore effort by Little Boots. I’ll admit — as I essentially do right in the text of the review — that I sometimes feel a little out of my depth when writing on more electronica-based releases, but I must admit that I’m fairly pleased with the way in which I described the song “Every Night I Say a Prayer.” On the film side, I … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Having a streak of cheapskate in me, I’m very selective about which films I see in 3D. Paying the extra dollars for the cavalcade of superhero movies and animated features that have effectively padded their prosperity with dimensional upscaling in … Continue reading You’ve been with the professors and they’ve all liked your looks
I spent much of this week in recovery, in a sort of spiritual and mental hangover over the insanely busy stretch of work that preceded it. So I’m a little worried that my contributions to Spectrum Culture were a touch discombobulated. On the music side, I wrote a piece on the new album from Montreal’s No Joy. It sounded pretty good to me, but I did struggle in the writing process to find the hook of the review. It’s definitely one of those times when I wanted to write, “It’s pretty good,” and be done with it. The chatting-with-buddies version … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Coffee for Two 