I’ve often wondered if Wes Anderson were to drop his dioramas and deadpan style, could he make a good, straight up drama? What does a Christopher Nolan musical look like? Does Quentin Tarantino have a Tiffany Haddish comedy in him? Can auteurs put their stamp on made-for-hire movies? These questions keep me up at night.... Continue Reading →
White middle class couples getting divorced haven’t really set the cinematic universe on fire for many many years. In its heyday, such films as Ordinary People, Kramer Vs. Kramer, and An Unmarried Woman garnered serious box office and Oscar attention. Nowadays, it’s a miracle if a small indie tackles the subject and gets a streaming... Continue Reading →
Greta Gerwig understands how to convey a sweeping, swooning movement in her directorial style. She proved it with her solo directing debut, Lady Bird, which captured the woozy spirit of a young person’s life, and she does it again with her unexpected adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Little Women. By comparison, prior versions,... Continue Reading →
I love a good whodunnit. Give me an unreliable narrator, misdirects, a slew of suspects, and a shocking reveal, and I’ll wanna know about it. Even if I don’t see a particular film or read the book, I’ll still Google it, because I just need to know if it elevates the genre or not. We... Continue Reading →
One of my all-time favorite films is F.W. Murnau’s silent classic, Sunrise, a drop dead gorgeous example of German expressionism in which its haunting imagery and Postman Always Rings Twice storyline felt way ahead of its time. Filmmakers today could learn a lot from its ability to tell a compelling story with very little dialogue.... Continue Reading →
It would be understandable to watch the first ten minutes of Parasite, the new film from Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer, The Host) and think you’ve stumbled into an alternate universe version of Shoplifters. Both feature a family of grifters living in a hovel and preying on people with money. Both won the prestigious Cannes Film... Continue Reading →
I love a good pulpy novel sometimes, and exactly a year ago, I picked up Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, published in 1999, completely unaware that an Oscar-nominated actor had been trying to bring it to the screen for the past two decades. It just sounded like a fun read, wherein a detective with an unnamed... Continue Reading →
After a series of personal setbacks, Shia LaBeouf has experienced a small renaissance lately with stellar performances in such films as The Peanut Butter Falcon, Borg Vs. McEnroe, and American Honey, proving his worth as one of the more exciting actors working. Now, with Honey Boy, he digs deep to not only to show off... Continue Reading →
Martin Scorsese’s The King Of Comedy remains my favorite of his films. Just as Network presaged the news would devolve into entertainment, Scorsese’s film predicted the consequences of a pop culture-obsessed society in which amorality wins in the end. The rise of Robert De Niro’s Rupert Pupkin, a struggling comic who lives with his mother... Continue Reading →
