In 1994, one year after dragging Jason Voorhees out of retirement for a film that violated the spirit of an entire franchise and sank like a stone at the box office, the good folks at New Line decided it would be a great idea to do the same thing for Freddy Krueger. But where Jason […]
It’s semi-common knowledge that I didn’t “attend” “high school” in the usually meaningful sense of those words. It is true that I come from home-schooling,* but I cannot help it. Because of this particular quirk, I’m not any sort of target audience member for high school movies, be they comedies or dramas or even (ick) […]
I made a huge mistake in judging the chipper little indie comedy Rocket Science from its marketing campaign. See, based on that, I assumed it desperately wanted to be Little Miss Sunshine, and while I’m sure the distributor would love if that turned out to be the case, that simplification is a gross disservice to […]
The 1956 film was a product of its time; for it studied the stifling effects of conformity. The 1978 film was a product of its time; for it wallowed in the paranoia of a culture that refused to trust anyone. The 1993 film was a product of its time; for it thrashed about in the […]
Here’s what happened between 1956 and 1978: John Kennedy’s assassination, the war in Vietnam, and Watergate. Here’s what happened between 1978 and 1993: Jason Voorhees. At any rate, that was my first thought at the opening of Abel Ferrara’s 1993 Body Snatchers, as it became obvious that our hero for this entry was going to […]
In the 1950s, people were paranoid about the Commies, the bomb, their neighbors, whatever. In the 1970s, they were just paranoid. After Watergate essentially destroyed any chance that a whole generation of Americans would ever trust their government, the decade witnessed a cycle of movies whose entire theme consisted mostly of “they’re trying to get […]
Don Siegel is one of the great American auteurs that nobody ever really thinks about. Partly, I suppose this is because his most famous film is Pauline Kael’s favorite fascist cop movie, Dirty Harry, and nobody really wants to be a Dirty Harry apologist. (Edited to add: Years later, most of those claims are no […]
Do you know the terror of he who falls asleep?To the very toes he is terrified,Because the ground gives way under him,And the dream begins… -Friedrich Nietzche,The first epigraph to Freddy’s Dead Welcome to Prime Time, bitch. -Freddy Krueger,The second epigraph to Freddy’s Dead Aw, fuck. -Me 1989: A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The […]
Q: What is Rush Hour 3?A: It is the third film in a series telling of the unlikely pairing of LAPD detective James Carter and Hong Kong inspector Lee. Q: Who plays Detective Carter?A: Chris Tucker. Q:What is the manner of Chris Tucker’s acting style in terms of his recitation of dialogue, his physical movement, […]
Some movies are great because they are subtle things, crafted with the precision of a Swiss watch, wielding the visual language of film with supernatural fluidity And some movies are great like a punch in the solar plexus is great. This Is England is a movie like a punch to the solar plexus. Writer-director Shane […]
I don’t mind admitting, being an American makes Molière seem better than it actually is, for two reasons: first, most of us haven’t read any of Jean-Baptiste “Molière” Poquelin’s plays, or at most just The Misanthrope (I do not exempt myself), and second, the film is in French. Let’s be honest, foreign-language movies tend to […]
After playing two punishingly thankless roles – the less interesting wife in Brokeback Mountain and the foil for Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada – I imagine that Becoming Jane was meant to be a sort of coming-out party for Anne Hathaway, and insofar as she gets a major […]
