Screen
Many unhappy returns
The hackneyed, half-assed backstory for the lead character in Happy Death Day involves the tragic loss of her mother, which doesn’t actually feel sad...
Nobody puts Baby in the corner
Pica (Toby Smith) is an Oakland college student taking Polaroids in a photography class devoted to 35 mm. “I came here to learn how...
Liveaction Oscar shorts a big deal
Start small. That’s the guiding dictum for everything from biological evolution to filmmaking. The live-action shorts that mark the start of most directors’ careers rarely see the light of day outside of specialized festivals; that is, except for the lucky bunch ...
Ferrell-in-training
The alcoholic son of an alcoholic, sales manager Nick Porter was born in a Raymond Carver short story called “Why Don’t You Dance?” published in the 1981 Carver collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. The story, which takes place at a yard sale among...
In space, particles accelerate you
At this rate, the next installment in the Cloverfield pseudo-franchise is going to suddenly appear as just a memory of you having seen the...
The problem with pulling your punches
When Wonder Woman sailed into theaters this summer, coolly breaking superhero box office record after box office record, it was no surprise that curious...
‘Nothing to do with death, everything to do with life’
How do you sum up a life in 500 words? That’s the problem Bruce Weber, veteran obituary writer for the New York Times, faces...
Sinful and sorrowful
The
Irishman begins in darkness. A small box of light at the center of
the frame opens like an iris, and we see nurses and doctors....
‘Saint John of Las Vegas’ has comedic timing
In "Saint John of Las Vegas," the hero's name is John "Alighieri," his job mentor is "Virgil," and the adversary they meet up with is "Lou Cipher...
