Weekend Arena: 8/31
Kind of a slow weekend coming up, unless you’re going through Tom Hardy withdrawal and The Dark Knight Rises is no longer playing in your…
Take 5: Biopics
As we await the premieres of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” and Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” we discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of…
PEDs and the Cinema
In a three week span, the San Francisco Giants’ Melky Cabrera, the Oakland Athletics’ Bartolo Colon, and Lance Armstrong have all been busted for using…
The Weekend Arena: 8/24
This week is a litmus test for whether we believe Joseph Gordon Levitt can be a Nightwing- / Robin-type superhero. It’s also time for another…
Million Dollar Baby — Contradictions in Violence
Paul Haggis often has a way of beating his audience over the head with cultural rhetoric, particularly if we look at Crash as an example….
The Bourne Legacy — A Reboot for the End
The departure from Paul Greengrass’ Bourne series to writer-now-director Tony Gilroy’s is marked and, at times, successful. Whereas the Bournes of Damon were shaky and…
The Weekend Arena: 8/17
More mystical phenomena occur to young boys Timothy Green and Norman. The former is a literal flower child; the latter is a young boy who…
A Bit Different than the Original, Except for the Propaganda
While this might be blasphemous to some, I must admit that the original Red Dawn (1984) is lost on me. A précis of the film…
Warrior — Sublimated, Sanctioned Violence
Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior looks like the latest entry into the pugilist genre, but its true theme is focused on the sublimation of violence. Admittedly, there…
Weekend Arena 8/10
This week, we have the fourth installment of an underrated film franchise, a time to place bets on whether of not The Campaign will become more…