The Battered Bastards of Baseball Review
RATING: (3 STARS) It’s a shame “For the Love of the Game” is already spoken for as far as baseball movie titles go. I think Chicago Cubs fans could be a little peeved at the implication that the short-lived Portland Mavericks minor league franchise are baseball’s true battered bastards… The love of the game, though, […]
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) There are a lot of obvious and superficial similarities between Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me and, from a few years ago, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Both follow older women with years of experience in show business as they struggle to keep up with what the demands of their careers. They both […]
Like Father, Like Son Review
RATING: (3 STARS) The Cannes-Jury-Prize-winning drama Like Father, Like Son, from the marvelously talented Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda, tells a really straightforward tale of a pair of families in crisis. It’s a regular Greek tragedy, in fact, but Kore-eda very interestingly circumvents emotion that’d be unapologetically oozing out of an American version of the same […]
5 Ways to Solve Marvel’s MacGuffin Problem
The MacGuffin is one of the oldest cinematic tropes in the book. It’s generally thought of as something without meaning to the audience but of great importance to the characters in a film. (Think Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps or, more recently, the rabbit’s foot in Mission: Impossible III.) Marvel has established a series of MacGuffins […]
2015 Oscar Predictions: First Guesses Before Fall Fests
It’s 2015 Oscar predictions time, so let’s dig the prognosticator’s hat out of the attic, dust it off, and take a look at the landscape of the 2015 Oscar race. If I’m being honest, though, I almost didn’t want to get involved with 2015 Oscar predictions at all. Last year’s Oscar season and the nonsense […]
Lucy Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) Lucy is a puzzling film insofar as it’s both fantastically inspired and utter garbage, and it’s really hard to tell where the two opposing qualities begin and end. On the one hand, director Luc Besson imbues the film with an energy heretofore untapped in science-fiction films that don’t have the word “Star” […]
Guardians of the Galaxy Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) “What was it about?” It’s often the first question someone asks me when I tell them about a movie I saw, and it ought to be the easiest one to answer. The first cinematic adaptation of Marvel’s deep-space-set saga Guardians of the Galaxy challenges that notion. Here, a studio has neutered down […]
Top 10 Movies of the “Filmspotting Era”
Webster’s Dictionary defines Filmspotting as “a force of good in the universe.” Or maybe that was Rian Johnson. Whatever the case, my favorite film podcast turned 500 this past week, and to celebrate the occasion it held a live event where hosts Adam and Josh counted down their top five favorite films of the “Filmspotting […]
My 2014 Criterion Sale Haul
The latest Barnes and Noble 50% off Criterion sale concluded today, and I spent some dough. Been digging into the discs above for the last few weeks, and I’ll continue to for weeks to come. Some thoughts on the films: A Hard Day’s Night — There’s a good chance this ends up being my favorite […]
Life Itself Review
RATING: (4 STARS) “A film like Hoop Dreams is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and make us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.” —Roger Ebert, 1994 There’s a really clever reflexiveness at play with the last two […]
Snowpiercer Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) After months and months of waiting, wondering whether the notorious Weinstein Company would allow director Bong Joon-ho to share his true vision for Snowpiercer with the world, the film is finally here (in theaters and on VOD), and surprisingly, it’s awfully straightforward. That isn’t to say it’s not a little weird, but […]
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is one of the most unusual big-budget Hollywood action movies I’ve ever seen. For one, it opens with a virtually silent 20-minute sequence—one that catches us up with characters from the film’s predecessor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There’s also next to no […]
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Martin Ritt’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold captures the essence of its source material almost eerily well. Adapted from what’s arguably John le Carre’s best and most well-known novel, the film and its lead character are portraits of Cold War malaise. Though it came out in 1965, during the […]
10 Criterion Documentaries You Should Buy This Month
My latest post for Sound on Sight (and first in a while) went up over the weekend. It’s a plea to cinephiles everywhere to consider some non-fiction when they make their half-off Criterion purchases this month at Barnes and Noble. A new Blu-grade of Hearts and Minds, the infinitely interesting Qatsi trilogy, the 3-D Pina, […]
Radio Days Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Radio Days comes at an interesting time within the Woody Allen canon. That output that follows it (excepting Crimes and Misdemeanors) for the next several years is generally regarded as a series of high-concept, well-intentioned misfires. Preceding Radio Days, of course, were Hannah and Her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Broadway […]
The Case Against 8 Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Documentaries of well-covered (or heavily covered, depending on your view on the state of professional journalism) subjects too often feel disposable because those in charge don’t use the medium to make their take on the story unique. A perfect example of this would be 2013’s complementary films about the anti-homosexual agenda in […]
