Stop-Loss (Kimberly Peirce, 2008). There was nearly a ten-year gap between Kimberly Peirce’s sensational feature debut, Boys Don’t Cry, and her follow-up, Stop-Loss, which is presumably indicative of the ridiculously difficult time female filmmakers have bringing projects to fruition. Stop-Loss … Continue reading Then Playing — Stop-Loss; Gilda Live; Winter Meeting
Unless I strike a new vein of dusty old words as I mine through my hoarded papers, I will soon reach the end of writing from my college radio days that can be transferred to this site for digital preservation. … Continue reading From the Archive — Regarding Henry
There was no question about which director should be represented in this space this week. Sadly, my options were somewhat limited. I would have loved to pull something from my days on The Reel Thing radio show in the early … Continue reading From the Archive: Charlie Wilson’s War
I regret that I know the work of Mike Nichols primarily — almost entirely — from the movies he made. That’s no slight on his cinematic output. Nichols signed his name to a multitude of classic films, consistently bringing a distinctive sense of style to his efforts, one paradoxically defined most by its tricky invisibility. Nichols didn’t really have a signature, at least not one beyond a crisp mastery of the visual language of film. There was a spacial airiness to his compositions that made the films feel as though they’d been shorn of clutter. He had the efficiency of … Continue reading Mike Nichols, 1931-2014
#6 — Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966) Let’s start by challenging a myth. Life magazine never actually reported a panicked revolt by Warner Bros. executives against the film version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, standing up at … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Six
#10 — The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) Famously, the casting for The Graduate was all messed up. Dustin Hoffman, in only his second film role and first of any significance, was thirty years old, nearly a decade older than would be … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Ten
#40 — Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, 1971) One of the things that I can never quite get over when considering the general cinema of the seventies is the mad rush of mature content, not just in terms of bouncing nudity … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Forty
Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, 1971). Working from a script by by the great cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Mike Nichols explores the fraught, shifting dynamics of sexual relationship by following a few characters over the course of several years, putting special focus on a randy, rambunctious, sharp-edged man played by Jack Nicholson. The movie may have been most noted for it’s frankness about sexual matters, still remarkable for the time, but it remains engaging because of an even bolder willingness to plumb the emotional rigors of the various characters. Nicholson is especially strong, shrewdly carrying his character from an impetuous, greedy youth … Continue reading Epstein, Greno and Howard, Nichols, Penn, Rush
It was another fairly busy week for me over at Spectrum Culture. I contribute my first offering to the Film Dunce feature, which invites writers to watch and consider seminal movies that had previously eluded them. I confessed to having neglected the debut feature from Mike Nichols, the film adaptation of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Then I proceeded to rave about it to such a degree that it made it doubly embarrassing that I’d avoided it for so long. Then there are new movies, which led me to When We Leave, which was Germany’s official entry for … Continue reading Spectrum Check
#27 — Primary Colors (Mike Nichols, 1998) Politics is a circus. It’s a bizarre mix of showmanship and exaggerated danger with every effort made to prop up the most artificial spectacles as if they’re the realest things in the world. It’s populated by people with outsized personalities projecting ingratiating joy, but there always seems to be a lurking hint of menace about them. It is controlled lunacy. About the only place the comparison breaks down is when P.T. Barnum’s famous evaluation of the susceptibility of the audience is invoked. A sucker born every minute? In politics, that seems a drastic … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Twenty-Seven
Coffee for Two 