Crimes of the Future. I suspect the only people ambivalent about the work of David Cronenberg are those who have not seen it. For all the rest, he is a polarizing figure: either a loathsome degenerate or one of the most noteworthy creators working in the medium; OK, maybe both. Matters of taste aside, he […]
Broadway Cinema
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Taika Waititi Takes Thor Over the Rainbow Bridge
THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. As I lay in the emergency room on July 3 — with a non-explosives-related digital wound, as I abhor cliché — writing about a Marvel movie was perhaps the furthest thing from my mind. Realistically, I was probably busy scrambling for hand-trauma jokes (Will I ever play the piano? What about […]
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Interceptor’s Fumble
In the strange chambers of my heart, there is a special place for action movies and my beloved sub-genre, the schlocky action movie. (It’s next to the spot for teen Shakespeare adaptations and only God will judge me.) In the days of rewinding rented video tapes, one mostly had to choose between a good script […]
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The Lives of Women
It would seem I’ve chosen the wrong decade to quit drinking. With apologies to Samuel Clemens, it’s easy: I’ve done it dozens of times. For whatever reason, though, I selected the summer of 2022 to take a longer, less-defined hiatus from one of my longest-standing hobbies. These weren’t conscious factors in the decision, but it […]
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Better Than the Real Thing
Not for nothing, I haven’t been to the theater in a while. It seemed like springtime had us on a roll, both in terms of plague abatement and promising new movie releases. But the complex network of circumstance — viral, political, artistic and financial — that lately serves to harsh the collective mellow has now […]
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Gamers
HUSTLE. As a foolishly sentimental person of a certain age, I will likely never give up on Adam Sandler. He rose to prominence at a time when Saturday Night Live was an illicit pleasure, at least in my house, something to be enjoyed as much for the show itself as for the accomplishment of sneaking […]
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Communing with Comedy
JERROD CARMICHAEL: ROTHANIEL. Despite its boom and bust popularity, stand-up comedy is an elemental art form. Combining obfuscation and transparency, truth and illusion, tragedy and hilarity, it’s all about vulnerability. There can be triumph, even dominance, but the prerequisite is for a spiritually naked person to climb into a spotlight with a microphone and communicate […]
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With the Boys
MEN. I first became aware of Alex Garland as a screenwriter in 2002, when 28 Days Later was released. Directed by Danny Boyle, that picture — not to be confused with the almost contemporaneous Sandra Bullock rehab comedy with a very similar title — delivered a new, kinetic perspective on the zombie/rage virus genre (yes, […]
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The Evolutionary
GEORGE CARLIN’S AMERICAN DREAM. Given his insistence on examining words and everything else in context, it would be disrespectful to talk about the comedic life and legacy of George Carlin without noting the moment in which the HBO documentary about him debuts. OK, wait — there’s too much. Let’s just look at comedy. Last week, […]
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Black Crab’s Icy Terrain
BLACK CRAB. When the world’s bleakness is inescapable as it has been of late, even fewer actors have the power to lure me into an apocalyptic landscape, a gritty wartime drama or even a setting that’s a little chilly looking. Such is the supernatural draw of Noomi Rapace, who pulled me into a trifecta of […]
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The Sound of Magic‘s Misdirection
THE SOUND OF MAGIC. I believe in magic. I live in a world where people spontaneously sing and dance, and cherry blossom petals fall from trees in the most opportune times. Because of this outrageous fortune, the world of The Sound of Magic, the new K-Drama series streaming on Netflix is immediately enticing. A downtrodden […]
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Cock and Bull Stories
WHITE HOT: THE RISE & FALL OF ABERCROMBIE & FITCH. Why is White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch on Netflix a poignant documentary? Was it supposed to be a piece of expository journalism explaining the nature of the brand? I was waiting for a surprise, a twist, a revelation but the […]