Michael — He’s No Angel
About ten minutes into Michael, you realize that there is no angel from Saturday Night Fever coming to shatter the innocent veneer or heavenly ideology….
Reviews
Cowboys and Aliens — The Echo of Ethnocentrism
Cowboys and Aliens is a cocktail of fun, silliness, and attempts at transparent meta-commentary. The film begins with a mystery as Jake Lannergan (Daniel Craig)…
The Avengers — Where Do We Go From Here?
The Avengers is an exercise in giving characters enough screen time without making them seem exploited and underutilized. And, for the most part, it works…
Tyrannosaur
Say what you like about Roger Ebert, but the guy is probably doing more to turn me on to movies I haven’t seen these days…
The Hunger Games — Propaganda and the Nazi Aesthetic
Directed and adapted by Gary Ross, The Hunger Games deviates from its literary counterpart penned by Suzanne Collins. The difference is not so much in…
Titanic — History’s Biggest Metaphor in 3D
On April 15, 1912, The Titanic sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. In those fateful hours, and amidst the fifteen-hundred casualties, the ship…
The Cabin in the Woods — A Horror Film Straight out of Genesis
The Cabin in the Woods opens in a sterile environment, white walls ascend to high ceilings, and two scientist-looking types discuss child-proofing homes as they…
The Adventures of Tintin — Echoing and the Perils of PG and 3D
Based on the series of comic albums by Belgian artist Georges Remi (Herge), the 2011 movie The Adventures of Tintin has clever moments and stunning…
Drive — Shells and Fractured Identities
Despite its title and premise, Drive is not a film about speed and Bullit-like car chases. Rather, Nicolas Winding Refn’s film is about fragmented identity….
Melancholia — Malaise, Friction, and Proximity
Like his misogynist personality that overshadowed the critically ignored but socially relevant Antichrist, Lars von Trier – with the help of truncated sound bites taken…