Happy New Year! Also: Happy Criterion Round-up! Election is nothing to sneeze at, but if you ask me, General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait is the film from The Criterion Collection’s December slate with the most contemporary significance. (It’s also really good. Keep that in mind. Even if Donald Trump wasn’t our fucking president, it’d still be … Continue reading
Tagged with alexander payne …
Golden Statues and Outrage: The Oscar Nominations
This week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled the entries for each of their twenty four categories in anticipation of this year’s 84th Academy Awards show. As is always the case, response among critics and film writers has been mixed, characterized by raised eyebrows, occasional high praise and pleasant surprise, and most … Continue reading
Review: The Descendants, 2011, dir. Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne strikes me as the sort of person who’s incapable of making a bad film. Limited body of work aside, critical success is critical success (which is to say nothing of Payne’s commercial victories in Sideways and About Schmidt), and with his darkly satirical examinations of contemporary American culture Payne has established for himself … Continue reading