ARMAGEDDON TIME. James Gray does not live in the popular consciousness the way many of our cinematic luminaries — themselves refugees from an ongoing extinction-level event — do. This is likely as much due to geographical bias within the industry as to Gray’s refusal to cater to the whims of that industry, transitory culture or, […]
Minor Theatre
Posted inArts + Scene
Food, Music and Corruption
There is a theme at work here, whether by pure happenstance or more ominous cosmic coincidence, that seems unlikely at first blush. But, in this disparate collection — a quasi-verité examination of investigative journalism, a darkly comic satire of celebrity cookery and an impossibly precise character piece rendered as waking-life ghost story — there lurk […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Carries On
BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER. In this widely anticipated sequel, director Ryan Coogler faces the impossible task of honoring the legacy of recently deceased global hero Chadwick Boseman, while directing not only a cast of grieving actors, but also meeting expectations of Marvel movie fans. In this context, the movie becomes an enigmatic embodiment of grief […]
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Making it Weird
WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY. For many of us, there has always been Weird Al. Before we could formulate anything like a valid critical opinion, much less decide what, by our flaccid cultural barometer, could be called “good,” we could still appreciate (or at least enjoy) the overlaying of silly lyrics upon songs we could […]
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Mixed (Genre) Bag
I can’t pretend there is any cohesive theme — any connectivity, really — to the movies I will set out to briefly discuss here, except that they have all been backburnered in an uncharacteristic pursuit of the horror genre in the past month. Being a contrarian reactionary, I may willfully not watch horror movies when […]
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V/H/S/99 Hits Rewind
V/H/S/99. The year 1999 was a noisy, notable one for movies — it can be marked as the year the movie industry and probably the expectations of audiences at large changed forever, maybe not for the better. After an excruciatingly protracted, admittedly revolutionary advertising campaign, in July of that year, we were finally granted access […]
Posted inArts + Scene
You Can’t Go to Hell Again
HELLRAISER. Despite the repeated implication — imprecation? — that I am a joyless churl and incapable of sitting in moments of celebration, I am working to embrace the spirit of the spooky season. I probably won’t put on a costume (beyond that of a smiling normie), but I’m making my way through the Criterion Channel’s […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Amsterdam‘s Mystery without Surprise
AMSTERDAM. When David O. Russell entered popular consciousness — with Spanking the Monkey (1994), an Oedipal rom-com that almost immediately went into heavy rotation on the Independent Film Channel — he was not accompanied by the fanfare that greeted some of his anointed indie-cinema contemporaries. Granted, he was one among many, but he was also […]
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Hollywood, Romance
BLONDE. Marilyn Monroe (neé Norma Jean Mortensen) has been dead now 60 years; nearly twice as long as she lived and a dozen times longer than the period of her working life. Her image, more than her acting work, which is truly formidable, sustains her as one of the undeniable icons of 20th century culture. […]
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Confess, Fletch and Pearl
CONFESS, FLETCH. To a vast, often problematic swath of the population (read: Gen X white guys, to whom I am only generationally adjacent, thanks very much), Chevy Chase is as a god. This is due in part, of course, to his SNL antics, Clark Griswold and his, in hindsight, surprisingly minor, world-devouring turn in Caddyshack […]
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Hell is Visiting Other People
SALOUM. Precipitation, early dusk and fattening pumpkin spiders can only mean one thing: Fall is here and with it, Spooky Season. My brother already has Halloween decorations up in his lawn, after all. So I was excited to note the release of two buzzy genre movies this week on Shudder, the well-curated, horror-focused streaming service […]
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The Last Minute
ON THE COUNT OF THREE. Suicide, for an act (force/influence) that will most likely eventually affect us all, is too often marginalized in culture and in conversation due either to fear, false reverence or simple misunderstanding. It becomes an easy punchline when something doesn’t go our way, or a caustic epithet cum directive vollied at […]