As I sat amidst a pile of shredded wrapping paper, finishing my last syrup-soaked pancake, I flipped on A Christmas Story, once again watching a child regaled with the dangers of firearms. He did in fact come close to shooting his eye out, and yet, there is still debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment. Clearly, […]
Dec22
The Fighter – A Novel Approach to the Boxing Genre, Also a PSA and the Pilot for The Lowell Shore
For the second time in two weeks, I will do my best to avoid puns during this post, particularly the ubiquitously uncreative “knockout” that has been used in most every review whether it be about Mark Wahlberg’s performance (really) or most often Chistian Bale’s. For starters, The Fighter could have been terrible, and there were so many […]
Admittedly, my reaction to the new William S. Burroughs Documentary A Man Within is probably rather skewed because of my familiarity with the Beat Generations and the authors therein. That said, the documentary itself was rather disappointing in that most of the information conveyed could have been located on Wikipedia or doing a random Google search. Objectively, […]
In a New York City subway, there are a number of ubiquities: the rats that scamper and scurry close to your feet, reminding you that if all 40 million of them ever chose to form a union and revolt, you would be in a bubonic heaven; garbage canisters that overflow and become less a receptacle and more […]
A review of Unstoppable is an exercise in avoiding train-related puns. I will do my very best to avoid noting whether or not the movie stays on track or goes off the rails, whether Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) conducts himself in a manner appropriate for a man whose been “railroading for 28 years,” even though he could […]
Born to a cacophony of jeers at Cannes, Antichrist blurs the line between the beatific and profane, forcing the audience to witness violence beneath the sensual. Coiled around each other in rapturous fornication, He (Willem Defoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) fill a beautiful, monochrome screen that casts the feminine face in a shade of light gray before […]
On a separate site, I commented on the recent glut of vampire films that have been produced, and if there’s one that you must see, it is Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In. This film intelligently and intricately captures the beatific vampire mythology while avoiding becoming a horror-flick driven by carnage. Unfortunately, Let the Right One […]
“You know when you meet someone for the first time and there’s this instant attraction?” asks Alex Forrest of Dan Gallagher over a drink, echoing the trope of love (or lust) at first sight that provides and sustains agency within characters progenated in hundreds of plays, books, or movies. “This instant attraction,” she says with a grin […]
As a few million of you might know, Inception opened this past weekend to the delight of many and the derision of a few who expected a summer movie to be a masterpiece. Please note: there is no “second coming” in the summer. If you’re privy to the recent heat wave that has blanketed the Northeast, summer […]