Over the weekend, Hard Candy was cast into the “Not bad, but probably not going to watch this film again” pile, not so much because of the pedophile-based subject matter, but because – in general – anyone being castrated on screen freaks me out. Although, for the record, I am very anti-pedophilia. Despite being Salvador Dali’s worst […]
Admittedly, there’s little to be said about Taxi Driver that hasn’t been noted already. Scorsese’s 1976 look at slightly off-kilter cabbie Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is a noir-style classic that avoids flashiness and focuses on how the “filth” and “sleaze” in one’s environment can cause someone to “thank God for the rain to wash the trash off […]
Mar16
Confession of a Superhero – I’d Be Green Lantern to Make My Love of Rings More Socially Acceptable
Working for many years as a waiter and bartend in high-end Manhattan restaurants, I found myself wearing standard-issue ties by designers who turned on customers but left me indifferent. The required color schemes and brands sent me to various stores from Calvin Klein to Nautica, searching for the appropriate shade of blue that created an innocuous, harmless […]
A few years ago, I sat on a jury that was charged with deciding the innocence or guilt of an eighteen-year-old Dominican male who had been charged with second-degree murder, allegedly getting into an altercation over a gold chain inside a bar and then leaving, only to return with a pistol with which he fired four bullets […]
The main quandary surrounding the 2010 documentary Catfish is whether it is real or staged, but this is one of those documentaries for which the validity of the footage matters less than the message being conveyed. Sure, that sounds a bit hokey and conjures memories of James Frey being praised and then lambasted by Oprah, who bought […]
Of all the ways to seek revenge, immurement’s a good way to go, and this notion isn’t a new one. In Ancient Rome, a vestal virgin charged with breaking her vow of celibacy would be sealed in a cave with a small amount of food and water until the goddess Vesta to rescue her. Predictably, Vesta was hardly punctual, […]
I heard there was an Oscar broadcast last night, but when looking back on the evening, it seemed that there was less of an awards show and more of an attempt to draw in a younger, hipper audience to the annual event, which was mocked at least three times in the first half –hour by hosts Anne […]
What’s ostensibly a Western driven by the remedying of an injustice, Unforgiven is really an exploration into how perceived identity defines value, whether it centers on William Munny (Clint Eastwood), a “known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition,” who was cured of “drinking and wickedness” by his deceased wife, or whether the […]
With releases like There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton, Charlie Wilson’s War, Atonement, Eastern Promises and Juno, 2007 is one of the most memorable years for movies in the last few decades, and the previous list is just the main Academy Award nominees. It also doesn’t hurt that 2007 gave us 28 […]