August 2009
33 posts
Withnail & I (1987)
by Elizabeth Wilcox
There’s a certain comfort in watching other peoples’ distress. Hence the ubiquity of America’s Funniest Home Videos, the popularity of The Office, the genesis of all of Michael Cera’s acting roles, and the joy of watching Simon Cowell eviscerate naive contestants on American Idol. But go overboard on the humiliation factor, and a potentially...
“Is it Square to Cry Foul?”: the Roots of...
by Andy Sturdevant
Ever since Pulp Fiction won the Palm D’Or at Cannes in 1994, it’s generally been regarded as a cultural benchmark, a game-changer, a generational touchstone, whatever other cliché you’d care to pile upon it. It’s largely true, too – it’s easy to divide post-Vietnam American cinema fairly neatly into pre- and post-Pulp Fiction eras, a trick that can’t really be done with...
1 tag
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
FROM HERE ON OUT, YOU ARE ALL COOL IN MY BOOK
by Michelle Said
Let’s just get it out of the way: From Dusk Till Dawn is a ridiculous movie.
I’ll admit that I had never ever seen From Dusk Till Dawn until Tarantino Week rolled around and I realized how paltry my viewing experience of his films have been. And, what’s more, I didn’t pick this film due to any interest in the subject...
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
THAT’S A BINGO!
by Chad Perman
For all the press it’s received in the past few weeks, Inglorious Basterds is probably not at all the movie you think it is. The parts receiving the most attention – the brutal killing and scalping of Nazis by the Pitt-led ‘Basterds’ – take up all of a few minutes, in an early scene of a film that’s epic in both scope and intent. Which is not to...
What Is It About Tarantino Films?
by Bodyalight
The familiar music kicks in just as they emerge on to the screen. They look cool, dressed in black suits, walking along the road with that strut. Shades. One pulls a cool drag from a half smoked cigarette, another has a toothpick tucked in the corner of his mouth, and another does a quick-but-still-slo-mo check over his back. These guys mean business.
Suddenly the scene cuts...
Death Proof (2007)
I DIDN’T SAY THAT I WASN’T A WOLF
by Letitia Trent
I first saw Death Proof in its original form, as the second part of the Grindhouse double-feature with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, so allow me to begin with a brief comparison of the two. While Planet Terror is over-the-top and plays the B-movie zombie movie genre for laughts, Death Proof, as you might expect...
Ponyo (2009)
by Amanda McCleod
This has been a special week, despite the heat. Summer is on its last legs and I often like to imagine these last few weeks are one long “Golden Hour”: enjoying cool lemon-flavored beverages, dreaming of the sea, and, perhaps, gazing at the stars. This summer there have been long afternoon walks, evening bike rides, outdoor concerts, and, while running simple errands, a...
(Not) A Love Story
by Sarah Winshall
(500) Days off Summer has been rubbing me the wrong way ever since I saw it last week. It is a film that is directly targeting me and my demographic in an extremely deliberate and demeaning way. The two most charming and well-respected indie darlings inhabit the lead roles of Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as two beautiful and off-beat hipsters...
3 tags
Flannel Pajamas (2006)
LOVE HURTS
by Chad Perman
Certain films should be required viewing for young couples in the midst of a new and overwhelming love, a corrective of sorts, something to help set the bar at a more realistic level; or, at the very least, a reminder that this doesn’t last and so if this is all you got going for your relationship - subsisting solely on the intoxicating fumes of lust and...
Wayne's World (1992)
PRALINES AND DICK
by Tess Lynch
Public access television was, in many ways, the blogging platform of yesteryear (yesteryear = dial-up, people, get with it!). Think about it: available to all, cheap or free, furthering the cause of free speech, for entertainment or educational use, and utilizing crappy production techniques and equipment. Are you with me? Can we agree? If we can, then I am...
4 tags
District 9 (2009)
SYMBOLISM and ‘SPLOSIONS: The Delicate Balance of District 9
by Mills Baker
That American culture in 1968 had as some of its chief preoccupations race, the Cold War, and the relationship of the persecuted individual against a sea of conformity made George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead subversive, resonant, even tragic. But it was only because Night of the Living Dead was...
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward...
BLESSED ARE THE MEEK
by marginal gloss
In 1881, Jesse James was in the twilight of his career as one of the most famous men in America, mythologized in his own lifetime as a model of the heroic bandit. Stories of his adventures were told and retold across newspapers, pulp novels and ballads. After his death, photographs of his corpse packed in ice were available in corner stores...
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Saturday March 24, 1984
by Kim Hoffman
Within milliseconds of hearing the first few beats of Simple Mind’s “Don’t You Forget About Me” my heart races and I think about a hundred things, but mostly: a school hallway lined with lockers in that certain shade of beige, you know – the kind that says, “You have to be here.” They are sterile and ugly and they show all your insides when you...
1 tag
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
UM, HE’S SICK. MY BEST FRIEND’S SISTER’S BOYFRIEND’S BROTHER’S GIRLFRIEND HEARD FROM THIS GUY WHO KNOWS THIS KID WHO’S GOING WITH THE GIRL WHO SAW FERRIS PASS OUT AT 31 FLAVORS LAST NIGHT. I GUESS IT’S PRETTY SERIOUS.
by Michelle Said
Growing up, my friends and I couldn’t agree on any bands (they liked Warrant, Poison and Megadeth and I liked...
Career Opportunities (1991)
A DESERT ISLAND SITUATION
by Chad P.
I can’t remember the exact conflux of events that led to me seeing Career Opportunities in a proper movie theater without my parents’ knowledge - though it might well have been something I snuck into after buying tickets for something else (I once bought tickets for Ladybugs and snuck into The Lawnmower Man instead, so I wouldn’t exactly...
The Breakfast Club (1985)
DON’T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME
by Chris Cantoni
So I got to the John Hughes party late and was surprised to discover that no one had yet chosen to review The Breakfast Club. Naturally, I assumed that no one felt up to the challenge of tackling this most revered of all Hughes films and it was my duty to step up to the plate. I was wrong on both counts. First, I have no hope whatsoever of...
Why I Never Really Liked John Hughes As Much As...
by Andy Sturdevant
John Hughes’s movies, even the classic ones, have always rubbed me the wrong way. I’ve just never liked them. I think part of it is probably that I always found them vaguely conservative, vaguely Reagan-esque in orientation. Part of it is also probably that knowledge of the specific plot points of these films was always one of those tests prospective girlfriends would...
Christmas Vacation (1989)
I DEDICATE THIS HOUSE TO THE GRISWALD FAMILY CHRISTMAS.
by Alan Hanson
-Is your house on fire Clark? -No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.
This film came out when I was two years old. Twenty years ago. For as long as I can remember it has been my favorite Christmas movie. Aside from being hilarious it’s always meant something more to me. I never really tried to figure...
Sixteen Candles (1984)
I’VE NEVER BAGGED A BABE
by Tess Lynch
************RIDDLED WITH SPOILERS*******************
Because I am feeling somewhere between sad and horrified that John Hughes has passed away, I am going to admit to several embarrassing things over the course of this review/essay; it’s not right to avoid these topics when you’re writing about a movie whose characters orbit around a...
Home Alone (1990)
THIS IS MY HOUSE AND I HAVE TO DEFEND IT
by Lani Barcelona
I’ll admit it, I don’t really remember life before Home Alone—it came out only a year after I was born – and as far back as I can remember it has been tightly woven into the fabric of American pop culture (as in, I don’t really know anyone who hasn’t seen it at least once). But Home Alone is even more tightly woven into my own...
Masculin feminin (1966)
James Bond and Vietnam
by Alan Hanson Swallowing the Godard-pill isn’t always an easy task. You’ll need a mastery of the French language, a laptop with internet access, and rapid cinephile mindset to wade through all the jokes and references sprinkled in his films. Masculin Feminin is an interesting departure from Godard’s nouvelle vague films (arguably his best work). Most notably, his oft used...
A Face in the Crowd (R.I.P. Budd...
Budd Schulberg’s A Face in the Crowd (1957), directed by Elia Kazan, remains one of the all-time great American political fables. An ornery, small-town drunk named Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is discovered by a radio producer named Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) playing his guitar while locked up in prison. Jeffries gets him a spot on a local radio show, sitting around a...
UP (2009)
I HID UNDER YOUR PORCH BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.
by Michelle Said
Okay, so here’s the thing: no, I didn’t see whatever indie darling cinema hipster piece of art that has been lately catered to my demographic and no, I didn’t see anything that made me think of an ex-boyfriend and weep into my pillow covertly after becoming quiet and sullen in the company of my friends and no, there was no Moment of...
What Makes Sammy Run? (R.I.P. Budd Schulberg, 1914...
“I was thinking about me. I just kept thinking nothing but me. I just kept saying Sammyglicksammyglick over and over inside my head and it kept growing louder SAMMYGLICKSAMMYGLICKSAMMYGLICK.”
I first read What Makes Sammy Run? in a film course during college. It was a revelation.
In the book, the late, great Budd Schulberg - who passed away yesterday at the age of 95 - tells us...
Moon (2009)
by marginal gloss
In the twenty-first century, the dream of a new space age promised to the baby boomers in the wake of the moon landings now seems impossibly distant. Mir was cremated and scattered over the South Pacific, and though the International Space Station remains under permenant reconstruction, it seems to have become the number one destination for billionaires and paper plane...
The Ugly Truth (2009)
JUST ANOTHER MOVIE WITH A BUNCH OF GORGEOUS PEOPLE
by Kelly Lightbody
Yes, the truth is ugly isn’t it. I had a hard time with this movie because I was entertained by it - and I did laugh from time to time - yet I still came out of the theater feeling less than compensated for my eight bucks. Last time I ever trade money for that movie. It wasn’t a total failure because...
The Brothers Bloom (2009)
GOTCHA!
by Sarah Winshall
I love watching movies. And Rian Johnson loves making them. This much is clear after watching his sophomore directorial release, The Brothers Bloom at the New Beverly Cinema’s “Festival of Fakery”, curated by Rian Johnson himself. The film screened as the cornerstone of a festival that went on to show other trickster classics such as Dirty Rotten...
The Hurt Locker (2009)
WALKING INTO THE BLAST RADIUS
by Monsterbeard
Rarely do films attempt to directly communicate the experience of our brave men and women in uniform. Hollywood is much more comfortable with a sole action hero defying explosions to put an end to a vast network of terrorists. We’re generally more comfortable with celebrating our successes than looking too closely at the cost. Which is...
Taxi Driver (1976)
MAN IN A ROOM
by Tess Lynch
I’ve found writing about Taxi Driver to be no easy feat. That’s not to say you should go easy on me, but rather to explain my approach to writing about it is to use a synecdoche of sorts: instead of talking about Taxi Driver — its ins and outs, its child prostitutes and politicians, the horrifying and glittering New York in its frame — I...
The Conversation (1974)
FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, DON’T GET INVOLVED ANY FURTHER
by Chad P.
It starts with a camera’s dazzling longshot from high above, a slow telephoto zoom that begins with a crowd and winds up with a person - or, rather, the back of a person’s head. Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), supposed surveillance extraordinare, is on the job. And, while this opening shot is precisely the kind of...
