These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. Spike Jonze directs the hell out of this ad, and Margaret Qualley similarly gives it her. I … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Kenzo World
#12 — Her (Spike Jonze, 2013) The basic plot description of Her, written and directed by Spike Jonze, implies that the film is a despairing broadside against modern technology. In an indeterminate near future, Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix) is a … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Twelve
The intent of this feature is to post something I’ve written that hasn’t previously shown up in this digital space, but I make exceptions on rare occasions. This is one of them, just so I can put a caboose on the train of Trivia Kickoff Movie writing. After I posted about Swingers earlier this week, a different Trivia disciple mentioned he thought that was the best Kickoff Movie that ideally suited the event, but that the best overall movie to fill that role for the station over the years was The Ice Storm. Without double-checking the list of films that … Continue reading From the Archive: Being John Malkovich
When I’m partial to a film, I will often devotedly adhere to whatever preferred version of it the filmmaker puts out there, including an alternative styling of the title. For example, I strongly advocate for the exclusive use of lowercase … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number One
Before he started directing feature films, Spike Jonze had a deserved reputation a master crafter of wildly entertaining and even innovative music videos. However, I think his best single piece of work away from the big screen is clear: the … Continue reading I wouldn’t be me if she wasn’t her
#12 — Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999) Charlie Kaufman has his screenwriting Oscar for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and he has plenty of swooning admirers ready to step forward and declare either of his metanarrative Möbius bands, Adaptation. or Synecdoche, New York, the purest distillation of his own unique form of absurdist existentialism. There are things to admire in all of those works, to be sure. Kaufman concocts crazy, complicated cinematic puzzles, and the offbeat invention that is seemingly second nature to him gives him one of the most distinct voices in modern movie-making. But from my … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Twelve
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
Making a film adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s revered children’s book Where the Wild Things Are seems like the height of doomed folly. As has been noted often in the long run-up to the film’s release, this is a book that … Continue reading I think you move me
Coffee for Two 