Fair warning: I really didn’t want to write this piece, and I’m doing it out of misguided obligation. Maybe I’m whining, but cut me some slack; I’ve already written about the #OscarsSoWhite fracas, and also contributed a handful of yadda yaddas to Paste Magazine’s annual Oscar preview (though I spend most of my yaddas turning my nose up at the … Continue reading
Has the James Bond franchise come full circle? Are we now at a point where there are no more secrets to the world’s most famous globe-trotting, womanizing, martini-guzzling spy? By the time Sam Mendes directs Skyfall, his entry in the half-a-century-old series, to its logical conclusion, we’ve actually experienced cinema of regression, watching as the … Continue reading
True Grit— via the Coen brothers– represents a landmark in the oeuvre of Ethan and Larry as the first pure genre movie they’ve attempted together. Even Blood Simple only dabbles in genre cinema; True Grit on the other hand can (and arguably should) be treated and appreciated as an uncomplicated and honest contemporary Western movie. … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 