Screen
Get Fassbent
So the whole time, Michael Fassbender wears this giant, papier-mache-style head and mumble-sings gibberish lyrics about things like snags in the carpet while other people play instruments they created out of things like toothbrushes. Welcome to Frank, a movie that is...
Please sir, may I have my job?
Sit down, Sartre. Writers/directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne get it a bit more right: Hell isn’t just other people. Hell is asking other people to surrender their bonuses so you can keep your job. Two Days, One Night is a harrowing social allegory, a dramatic ...
Bleak and white
Celebrated narcissist and Freddy Krueger look-a-like Frank Miller gives the women he writes a plethora of career choices. They can be prostitutes, strippers, bondage-wearing murderers or corpses. Some get to be all of those! Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is part ...
Reel to Reel | Week of March 22, 2012
21 JUMP STREET Two young police officers and ex-classmates go undercover at a local high school to investigate a dangerous drug ring. Rated R. At Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Los Angeles Times/MCT ACT OF VALOR After the rescue of a kidnapped CIA ...
No Wright, still alright
In the belly of a hollowed-out volcano, maniacally laughing and rubbing their hands together in a way only villains are wont to do, WB/DC executives had to be overjoyed when writer/director Edgar Wright left Ant-Man just as production was starting. Finally! A Marvel...
It (almost) never works
Since American media sexualizes almost everything except sex, Hollywood romantic comedies about two people making hey-hey without any big plans for any big future rarely come easily or operate from a spirit of carnal delight. The strain of being hip and loose, yet ...
Reel meaning
Art saves lives. That’s not hyperbole or exaggeration. Creating art as a release has let countless razorblades sleep soundly in their drawers. Consuming art that expresses what someone can’t say themselves, something that tells them “you’re not alone” or distracts ...
Lower-case Spielberg
In general, I’m not a big fan of holding artists accountable to the standard set by their best work. Making something “good” after making something “great,” doesn’t mean that the good thing is any less objectively good or that the great thing is any more great. What ...
