I am not a fan of year-end lists. They are entirely reductive and self-congratulatory. However the text below was triggered by another critic, Examiner.com’s Jason Roestel, who asked me to contribute to his year-end piece. So this is a version that fixes as many grammatical errors as I originally had, as well as some significant […]
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Featured quote (not written by me)
Cultural critic James Wolcott, on the new film critic:
"Film critics today have become these rabid completists... They feel like that with festivals, they have to see everything, no matter how minor. Part of it is bragging rights. The other part is that the only thing that feeds into their movie writing is other movies."
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Archive for January, 2012
Dragged, Kicking and Screaming to Answer Year-End/Best of 2011 Questions
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
Tags: 30 Minutes or Less, A Good old Fashioned Orgy, Albert Brooks, Another Earth, Bad Teacher, Ben Garant, Blue Velvet, Bridesmaids, Brit Marling, Bucky Larson, Buffalo '66, Carey Mulligan, Cedar Rapids, David Carradine, David Wain, Drive, Eli Manning, Examiner.com, Friends With Benefits, Hall Pass, Haywire, Horrible Bosses, I Love You Man, Jason Roestel, John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow, Justin Timberlake, Ken Marino, Knocked Up, Kristen Wiig, Manhunter, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Michael Mann, Michael Rapaport, Mila Kunis, Nicholas Winding Refn, Nicolas Refn, Our Idiot Brother, Pedro Almodovar, Phife Dawg, Q-Tip, Ron Perlman, Scott Glenn, Southern Comfort, splotchy-vision, Stepbrothers, Steven Soderbergh, Streets of Fire, Sucker Punch, Talk to Her, Terry Crews, The Change-Up, The Debt, The Driver, The Jetsons, The Reflecting Skin, The Skin I Live In, The State, The Warriors, Thief, Thomas Lennon, Upright Citizens Brigade, Walter Hill, Will Ferrell, William Mapother, Wilson Phillips, Your Highness, Zach Snyder
Posted in Action/Adventure, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Thriller | No Comments »
Dragged, Kicking and Screaming to Answer Year-End/Best of 2011 Questions
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
Tags: 30 Minutes or Less, A Good old Fashioned Orgy, Albert Brooks, Another Earth, Bad Teacher, Ben Garant, Blue Velvet, Bridesmaids, Brit Marling, Bucky Larson, Buffalo '66, Carey Mulligan, Cedar Rapids, David Carradine, David Wain, Drive, Eli Manning, Examiner.com, Friends With Benefits, Hall Pass, Haywire, Horrible Bosses, I Love You Man, Jason Roestel, John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow, Justin Timberlake, Ken Marino, Knocked Up, Kristen Wiig, Manhunter, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Michael Mann, Michael Rapaport, Mila Kunis, Nicholas Winding Refn, Nicolas Refn, Our Idiot Brother, Pedro Almodovar, Phife Dawg, Q-Tip, Ron Perlman, Scott Glenn, Southern Comfort, splotchy-vision, Stepbrothers, Steven Soderbergh, Streets of Fire, Sucker Punch, Talk to Her, Terry Crews, The Change-Up, The Debt, The Driver, The Jetsons, The Reflecting Skin, The Skin I Live In, The State, The Warriors, Thief, Thomas Lennon, Upright Citizens Brigade, Walter Hill, Will Ferrell, William Mapother, Wilson Phillips, Your Highness, Zach Snyder
Posted in Action/Adventure, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Thriller | No Comments »
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Roadracers
Whenever there’s a genre parody or ode to a specific era of films, such as Black Dynamite’s mocking of Blaxploitation films or Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, the second half of Grindhouse, the danger is that the film might fall into the trap of either being condescending without any particular insight, or so faithful that it becomes the very flawed thing it is emulating.
Black Dynamite has nothing new to say about Blaxploitation films, it just does a decent job of copying what an inept [...]
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Featured Quote (written by me)
On Cold Fish:
Though the 16 year old me described the 1994 weepie Angie, starring Geena Davis as a Brooklyn mother raising her new baby alone, as “maudlin and melodramatic,” Roger Ebert, during his TV review, referring to the multitude of soap-operaish problems piling up on the titular character, suggested that it was only in Hollywood where Angie would get a happy ending. “If they made this movie in France, Angie would have shot herself.”
Well Cold Fish was made in Japan, where Angie would have shot herself and that would have been the happy ending.