On this Saturday, I am giving myself over to the cultural sensation of our time. so I reach back to the little diversion I once cooked up (or co-opted, anyway) for a weekly bit of relief at the end of … Continue reading From the Archive — Five for Friday, Let’s Put on a Show! edition
I don’t really have much preface for this week’s excavated movie review, except to note that this was written for my former online home within my first six months of jumping back into the film criticism game. There are times … Continue reading From the Archive — The Family Stone
I think I’ve already dug through and shared all the old reviews I have that detail the usually dire outcomes with film adaptations of Stephen King’s work. In order to tie-in with this weekend’s big new movie — which reportedly … Continue reading From the Archive — Flashback Friday: 1978
And so we come to the fourth and final piece I wrote for the “Movies That Shoulda Been Summer Blockbusters” episode of 90FM’s The Reel Thing, back in June 1991. At this point, I suspect Midnight Run is considered a minor classic … Continue reading From the Archive: Midnight Run
Here is another of the short reviews I wrote for the “Movies That Shoulda Been Summer Blockbusters” episode of The Reel Thing, aired during the sweltering season of 1991. Looking at this review now, I’m struck by how little I … Continue reading From the Archive: Real Genius
Continuing with mini-series launched last week that excavates the reviews from the bygone “Movies That Shoulda Been Summer Blockbusters” special episode of 90FM’s The Reel Thing, this is what I wrote about the comedy The Man with Two Brains, directed … Continue reading From the Archive — The Man with Two Brains
Launching a two-man movie review program in 1990 meant our weekly effort followed the template set by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. There was no question about it. That included the occasional creation of themed shows. In the case of … Continue reading From the Archive — Gremlins 2: The New Batch
This is a short one (it was originally offered as part of a set of capsule reviews), but it represents the first time I wrote about an Edgar Wright movie. In part because of the hit-and-run nature of the review, I didn’t write about his direction much. Truthfully, it wasn’t until Wright’s next film that his visual acumen and storytelling ingenuity really started to dazzle me. While I will elaborate in a few days, I’ll promptly acknowledge that I’m revisiting this particular piece because Wright has just delivered what I’m confident will shake out as one of the best films of … Continue reading From the Archive: Hot Fuzz
Nine years ago today, I conducted an experiment in masochism. The particulars are explained well enough below, so I’ll not offer no additional retrospective preamble. Enjoy my pain. In the summer of 1998, my partner-in-all-things and I were vacationing in Colorado. As we’re prone to do, we took some of our spare time to go and see a movie. Since we were in the mood for something fun and light–a junk food movie, if you will–we ventured to a nearby theater and saw Armageddon, Michael Bay’s third feature and his follow-up to the flawed-but-mindlessly-entertaining The Rock. My old colleague in … Continue reading From the Archive: Bay Day
When I was reviewing films for a weekly radio show, I had to see practically everything that came through our modest little college town. In the few years after I had a diploma and no regular responsibilities for writing about the latest titles to grace the multiplex, I still saw nearly every major release that hit theaters. After that I was far more selectively, which sometimes leaves me wondering why I saw a particular film while it played in first-run theaters. I believe the outing that led directly into this review was because our household briefly — and occasionally to … Continue reading From the Archive: Smart People
Coffee for Two 