“George Clooney’s Sentimentality Can’t Prop Up ‘The Tender Bar'”

The tender blah. Continue reading →

Review: Hail, Caesar!, 2016, dir. Joel & Ethan Coen

Let’s get one thing outta the way: Hail, Caesar! is minor Coen brothers. It is not No Country For Old Men, though if we are using that as the yardstick separate “minor” Coens from “major” Coens, then nearly every film they have made since 2007 falls into the former category. You can instead lump Hail, Caesar! in with A Serious … Continue reading →

Putting Out the Fires: Oscars 2012 Aftermath

Well, the ceremony’s done, the statues have all been given out, and noses have been browned; the 84th Academy Awards are now in the books. And I have an opinion on them even though I didn’t even watch them. I don’t know that there should be much surprise in regards to what won and why. The … Continue reading →

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 →

A Useful Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2009, dir. Wes Anderson

Hotbox. With his latest film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson seems to have stumbled upon something truly revelatory in his career: The man was born to make movies using stop-motion animation. Anderson is a man obsessed with minutiae, the tiny details in a film that might seem trifling or inconsequential when looked at in a … Continue reading →

A Useful Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats, 2009, dir. Grant Heslov

Alright, imagine that in the 80’s, the US government sanctioned the implementation of an Army regiment trained using New Age hippie tactics and placing emphasis on the paranormal. These soldiers were taught the art of remote viewing (the ability to gather information about unseen or far away targets through extra-sensory perception), and it was hoped … Continue reading →