The July 1936 issue of Esquire magazine included a poem by Langston Hughes titled “Let America be America Again.” A meaty treatise on how the most treasured principles of the American dream are forever out of reach to certain citizens … Continue reading That Championship Season — America to Me, Season One
Bad Company (Robert Benton, 1972). A relatively obscure entry in the legion of films from the late-nineteen-sixties and early-nineteen-seventies that sought to strip away the romanticizing so entrenched in the Western genre. A young man named Drew (Barry Brown) flees … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Bad Company; Abacus: Small Enough to Jail; Son of Saul
In a cinematic irony that its subject would surely appreciate, the documentary Life Itself is dominated by the specter of death. Sure, the film does its duty in tracing the life of film critic Roger Ebert, who is arguably the … Continue reading The hills ringing hear the words in time, listen to the holler
#7 — Hoop Dreams (Steve James, 1994) There are an abundance of reasons why sports stories work so well in the movies. The nature of the games themselves offers up a nice clean narrative line, and the duel of opposing … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Seven
Coffee for Two 