Howdy, Kingdom of AE! Back in late March, I had the pleasure of sitting down with art-history-scholar-turned-Broadway-producer-turned-film-director Grant S. Johnson, whose indie spy thriller Agent Game hits theaters on April 8. Agent Game is the conspiracy-laden tale of a CIA interrogation wrong, starring a motley crew of fascinating actors, from Katie Cassidy to Barkhad Abdi to Mel Gibson. CIA officer Harris (Dermot Mulroney) is involved in missions to detain and […]
Many years from now, when they are making the list of the great War on Terror thrillers, they will of course start with Zero Dark Thirty, and until recently, that’s where they could have ended, too. Now we have a second, sneaking into the world with virtually no fanfare other than a 2015 Toronto International Film Festival debut that nobody talked about since it wasn’t getting an Oscar-qualifying run: Eye […]
Shall we do this thing? Let’s do this thing. It’s the thing that American cinephiles get to do instead of caring about sports statistics, and I’ve had several weak years of predictions in a row, so I’m starting to get hungry to redeem myself. Best Picture12 Years a SlaveAmerican HustleCaptain PhillipsDallas Buyers ClubGravityHerNebraskaPhilomenaThe Wolf of Wall Street WON: 12 YEARS A SLAVEWill Win: 12 Years a SlaveSpoiler: GravityMy Pick: Gravity […]
The 6th Antagonists, that is, but only the fifth by that name. At some point, I shall have to at least come up with a crappy MS Paint graphic of what an Antagonist actually looks like. Apologies for the lateness of this post this year! Sometimes life is not very busy, and sometimes it is, and I’ve been in the latter of those two states for all of the young […]
Adams in! Hanks out! A kingly two nominations for the wonderful and gorgeously-appointed Inside Llewyn Davis! Since the whole thing is much pleasanter when you just treat it as a game, I’ll share my score: a dismal 88/122 (80/107 without the shorts; 37/44 on the Big 8). It was a hard year to predict, but not that hard. But seriously, two nominations for Inside Llewyn Davis is fucking bullshit. Picture12 […]
Should we do this thing? Let’s do this thing. It’s like the holidays: once a year you just shut up and do the done thing, for tradition’s sake. I am eschewing commentary, because of being busy, but feel free to call me out on my logic in comments. Picture12 Years a SlaveAmerican HustleCaptain PhillipsDallas Buyers ClubGravityNebraskaPhilomenaThe Wolf of Wall Street I’m officially predicting only these eight. If there are up […]
The kind of film writing that starts with “it’s the Oscar time of year and I want to discuss a movie’s Oscar prospects” is one that I actively try to eschew, because it’s not really reviewing, it’s gossip. That being said, I hope that nobody minds if I do it on very rare occasions, because I’m compelled to do it right now. Viz, if Barkhad Abdi isn’t nominated for Best […]
