No plaster saint, nor marble effigy of Abraham Lincoln is to be found in THE BETTER ANGELS. Based on the recollections of Lincoln’s surviving family, as spoken by his cousin about his boyhood in Indiana, this is a Lincoln before the legends had taken root, the Lincoln of great promise whose intellectual curiosity and love… Read More »
JOHN WICK
JOHN WICK is a sleek and unrepentant film about revenge and redemption. Set in a parallel world to ours, one populated by criminals who live by a strict set of rules, conventions, and etiquette, it is a dark fantasy of violence in which the hero isn’t the pacifist, it’s the guy who really loves his… Read More »
OUIJA
I have several Halloween rituals, one of which is to seek out the seasonal schlock horror film. There is almost always one low-budget groaner released for a quick buck and a putative future in the secondary market of home video. My reasons are two-fold. Sometimes there is a pleasant surprise to be found in the… Read More »
BIRDMAN or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
THE SHORT VERSION: One of the best films of the year.
CROP CIRCLES: QUEST FOR TRUTH
Sparing the viewer such extremes as the smug condescension of skeptical inquiry and the awful awe-filled wonder of crystal-toting New Age neo-pagans, CROP CIRCLES: QUEST FOR TRUTH, has only one agenda in its exploration of crop circles, listening to people with something to say beyond those extremes I mentioned before and then letting us draw… Read More »
FOOT FIST WAY, THE
THE FOOT FIST WAY, an indie comedy made in just 19 days, was picked up by Will Ferrell’s production company, and it bears many of the hallmarks found in Ferrell’s recent spate of films. It involves sport, in this case Tae Kwon Do. It involves a clueless hero (played by co-writer Danny McBride, not by… Read More »
THE STRANGERS
THE STRANGERS has distilled the horror film down to its basest elements. It is nothing more than 90 minutes of watching a couple being stalked and assaulted in their house out in the deep dark piney woods. In this, it speaks to a deep-seated modern anxiety about not even home and hearth providing safety. Alas,… Read More »
SEX AND THE CITY
SEX AND THE CITY, the television series, was all about fashion labels and sex. Delivered in tantalizing half-hour gobbets, it was the perfect fantasy antidote to real life. The women were fabulous, the stories were glamorous, the dialogue wittily impudent, and the glorification of the trivial was a deliciously wicked guilty pleasure. This is a… Read More »
BIGGER STRONGER FASTER
Everything you thought you knew about steroids is wrong. Everything you suspected about the demoralizing effect that the media’s obsession with perfection has on our psyches is true. BIGGER STRONGER FASTER not only makes the case for both those propositions, it also demonstrates how they are inextricably entwined in the fabric of the American consciousness.… Read More »
KUNG FU PANDA
In the grand tradition of the DRUNKEN MASTER series, the one in which the hero could only wage righteous martial arts warfare when in an advanced state of inebriation, comes KUNG FU PANDA, about a bear that can only wage righteous martial arts warfare when, well, that’s the problem. Po is the unlikely eponymous panda… Read More »
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