Category: Uncategorized

Finding the Beauty–Book Review: The Language and Style of Film Criticism Edited by Alex Clayton and Andrew Klevan

Theory is dead. Well, so I am told. Since the 1990s critics, authors and writers such as David Bordwell, Murray Pomerance and many others have stressed the need to steer film theory in a new direction, whether it be film-philosophy, neo-formalism or another approach (if not theory altogether). Thankfully, if theory is not completely dead […]

Book Review: Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of An American Director by Patrick McGilligan

For many cinephiles, cineastes, filmmakers and Frenchmen Nicholas Ray was a titan—a man who thrived with a remarkably independent vision in the grind of the studio era.  Almost exactly a year ago Criterion released Ray’s classic (and my favorite of his films) Bigger Than Life on DVD. Here, in a review, Rob Ribera commented, “the […]

Your Highness

Once upon a time, about eight years ago, David Gordon Green was America’s most promising young filmmaker. In certain circles, people were calling him the next Malick, and while comparing a twenty-seven year-old with two feature films under his belt to the greatest American filmmaker since Orson Welles may have been a bit excessive, it […]

Certified Copy

Looking over my now three-month-old list of the best films of 2010 (which I now realize I should have posted here) I’m noticing how much some of the positioning would change with the benefit of time. The key word there is “some.” There is still no doubt in my mind about the top two films […]

The Lincoln Lawyer

Matthew McConaughey is extremely likable.  When we look back at his most well-known roles—Steve Edison in The Wedding Planner, Ben Barry in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Tripp in Failure to Launch, Connor Mead in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past—it is more than clear that he can play the good-looking, smooth-talking romantic interest […]

Paul

Over the last decade, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have discovered one of the best formulas in comedy. If you put them, and their quintessential Brittishness, into a scenario from any number of overly serious popular American films, hilarity will probably ensue. Of course, this formula worked best in 2004’s cult classic Shaun Of The […]

The Adjustment Bureau

To date, there have been nine Hollywood adaptations of Philip K. Dick’s novels and short stories. The latest, The Adjustment Bureau (adapted from a short story called “The Adjustment Team”), has the distinction of being in the exact middle of the pack. George Nolfi’s film doesn’t even come close to Blade Runner, Minority Report, A […]

Little Fockers

Little Fockers, the third, and hopefully final, film in the trilogy that also includes Meet The Parents and Meet The Fockers, ends with a scene that serves as a surprisingly apt metaphor for the series as a whole. Early in the film, Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) gives a speech in which he recounts some of […]

Colin Firth and The King’s Speech

Every Jane Austen fan remembers her first time.  Reading Pride and Prejudice, that is.  Still I’ll never forget the first time I saw the BBC TV mini-series of Pride and Prejudice, the 1995 Simon Langton version so perfectly executed that the film adaptation gods must have wept when they watched it.  Days later, I popped […]

Blue Valentine

If you’ve heard anything about Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, it was probably in the context of the MPAA’s laughable decision to stick the film with the dreaded NC-17 rating (since reversed to a still-too-harsh R), or maybe you have a bearded, plaid-loving friend who keeps gushing about Grizzly Bear writing the film’s score (as a […]