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 […]
Posts by: adamburn
Certified Copy
April 1, 2011 at 4:52 pm
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 […]
Paul
March 17, 2011 at 10:33 pm
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
March 3, 2011 at 10:34 pm
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
December 17, 2010 at 9:07 pm
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 […]
Blue Valentine
December 9, 2010 at 9:11 pm
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 […]
Nowhere Boy
November 17, 2010 at 8:37 pm
In the sixty-odd year history of modern pop music, there are dozens of artists who have achieved the status of icon or legend, and the most famous names on that list are more globally recognizable than any world leader, but of all those great talents and massive names, I’d say only two acts—The Beatles and […]
Howl Interview
November 17, 2010 at 8:36 pm
I recently took part in a roundtable discussion with Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, the Oscar-winning directors (Epstein made The Times Of Harvey Milk and they co-directed Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt) of the new film Howl, a multi-faceted drama about the making of Allen Ginsberg’s eponymous poem. The film stars James Franco as […]
Howl
November 17, 2010 at 8:29 pm
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…” Thus marks the beginning of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” arguably the most famous American poem of the post-war era. Discovering this poem has been a vital moment in the lives of so many so-called “angel-headed hipsters” over the last fifty years that it hardly seems […]