SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. I think a lot about the influence of historical context on works of art. Strip away the social and political events of the time and does a painting, a book, a play, a punk rock bank, a movie hold up in that vacuum? What art remains relevant, meaningful, a source of […]
The Miniplex
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A Sharp Eye
MALIGNANT. I was a vocal detractor of James Wan before I knew his name, long before I would ever see a single frame of one of his movies. Saw (2004), his collaboration with Leigh Whannell that would spawn untold sequels, let alone copies, was the starting point of one of the most successful careers in […]
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Worth’s Old Math in a Changed World
WORTH. In 2001, New York City might as well have been 1 million miles away from me. In rural Southeastern Washington, that particular September morning was gorgeous, the changing season having begun to dispel the oppressive heat. I was on my way to class, oblivious as usual, and stopped at the student union, for what […]
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The Forest for the Happy Little Trees
“Bob Ross, 52, Dies; Was Painter on TV.” That was the caption in the July 13, 1995 New York Times obituary section. No headline, no picture. Just a blurb. Yes, that Bob Ross. The white guy with the Afro and the soft voice who painted landscapes inconceivably quickly and beautifully for the PBS show The […]
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Pop-Op Perfection?
ANNETTE. Received rapturously at the Cannes Film Festival — the standing ovation lasted long enough for Adam Driver to smoke a cigarette — this might fairly be interpreted as the long-overdue arrival of the Brothers Mael. That statement, of course, cannot be made, at least by me, without a few disclaimers/asterisks. First, and perhaps most […]
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A Pig, an Eagle and a Paranoid Thriller
RIDE THE EAGLE. I did not, do not, probably will not watch the series New Girl. Nothing against it, it just isn’t likely to happen. As such, I know series co-star Jake Johnson primarily from his run of slightly off-kilter, almost on the mainstream radar independent movies, especially the great work he’s done with writer-director Joe […]
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Anti-heroic
THE SUICIDE SQUAD. It has been five years (sigh) since the misbegotten and now confusingly titled Suicide Squad bowed. At the time, I was hellbent on enjoying the thing, intermittently awestruck as I had been by the work of writer/director David Ayer. Good times meet sad ends, though, and as I lengthily enumerated in this […]
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I’m Going to Disneyland
REVIEW JUNGLE CRUISE. Somewhere in another corner of the Multiverse Marvel/Disney’s Loki series has failed to help me conceptualize, there is a version of me with the wherewithal to join a friend at the movie theater to enjoy The Green Knight and the glory of Dev Patel in period costume. But you’re stuck with this […]
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The Wild Ride to F9
F9: THE FAST SAGA. The thrill isn’t gone, per se, but in having recently revisited the undeniable high-water mark of installments four through six — Fast & Furious (2009); Fast 5 (2011); Fast & Furious 6 (2013) — of this almost ridiculously long-lived franchise, this unlikely behemoth that was never really meant to survive, I […]
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Hybrid Hits
REVIEWS WEREWOLVES WITHIN. Surprise or not, I don’t know a whole helluva lot about video games. I’ve dabbled but that particular swath of popular culture is, by and large, foreign to me. So it brought on some trepidation when, before the title card was even revealed, Werewolves Within opened with a Ubisoft logo. (I know […]
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Behind the Music
SUMMER OF SOUL (… OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED). Intimates might wonder (fairly) at my desire to watch and ramble on about a concert movie. I’ve shared freely my general discomfort and occasional disappointment at the live music experience with those unfortunate enough to have to listen, for years beyond counting. It’s […]
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Retro Dread Redux
REVIEWS FALSE POSITIVE. To dispense with it at the outset: Yes, Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is part of the conversation. It has been for more than half a century. It arguably invented — or at least created a lasting identity for — mainstream American horror movies and, in so doing, created its own ripple-effect of sub-genres […]