Is it possible for a movie to be stagey and dated even if it was neither based on a play nor more than a few weeks old? Are cranky Jews all the same or is there a significant difference based on where they grew up and the specific cause of their self-hatred? Do all recent […]
Featured Directors
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 June 27th, 2009
Whatever Works
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
Tags: Adam Lippe, Albert Brooks, Alice, anhedonia, Annie Hall, Bananas, blurb, Broadway Danny Rose, brown, Brown-vision, Bullets Over Broadway, celebrity, chess, Cliché, Crimes and Misdemeanors, critic, Curb Your Enthusiasm, dated, Deconstructing Harry, Diane Keaton, Dianne Weist, Dustin Hoffman, DVD, Ed Begley Jr., Evan Rachel Wood, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex* But Were Afraid To Ask, fantasy, film, film review, fourth wall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives, improv, incest, Interiors, Jeff Garlin, Jerry Seinfeld, Kenneth Branagh, Larry David, Love and Death, Manhattan, Mariel Hemingway, Match Point, May, May-December romance, Melinda & Melinda, menage a trois, Mia Farrow, Michael McKean, misanthrope, movie review, Mr. Magorioum’s Wonder Emporium, nebbish, nerd, original cut, Patricia Clarkson, pedophile, PG-13, Radio Days, RegrettableSincerity.com, romantic comedy, Scarlett Johansson, Scoop, Seinfeld, September, Shadows and Fog, Sleeper, Soon-Yi Previn, Sour Grapes, stagey, Take the Money and Run, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, The Purple Rose of Cairo, theatrical, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Woody Allen, Zelig, Zero Mostel
Posted in Comedy | No Comments »
Whatever Works
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
Tags: Adam Lippe, Albert Brooks, Alice, anhedonia, Annie Hall, Bananas, blurb, Broadway Danny Rose, brown, Brown-vision, Bullets Over Broadway, celebrity, chess, Cliché, Crimes and Misdemeanors, critic, Curb Your Enthusiasm, dated, Deconstructing Harry, Diane Keaton, Dianne Weist, Dustin Hoffman, DVD, Ed Begley Jr., Evan Rachel Wood, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex* But Were Afraid To Ask, fantasy, film, film review, fourth wall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives, improv, incest, Interiors, Jeff Garlin, Jerry Seinfeld, Kenneth Branagh, Larry David, Love and Death, Manhattan, Mariel Hemingway, Match Point, May, May-December romance, Melinda & Melinda, menage a trois, Mia Farrow, Michael McKean, misanthrope, movie review, Mr. Magorioum’s Wonder Emporium, nebbish, nerd, original cut, Patricia Clarkson, pedophile, PG-13, Radio Days, RegrettableSincerity.com, romantic comedy, Scarlett Johansson, Scoop, Seinfeld, September, Shadows and Fog, Sleeper, Soon-Yi Previn, Sour Grapes, stagey, Take the Money and Run, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, The Purple Rose of Cairo, theatrical, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Woody Allen, Zelig, Zero Mostel
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Now on DVD and Blu-Ray
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 [...]
Recent Reviews
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Recent Comments
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Archive
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.