I must admit that I have been somewhat of a “Trump optimist” these last few months. I believed in his obvious, demonstrable incompetence at just about everything he does – except branding and self-promotion, obviously. (He’s been abetted in this incompetence by untold numbers of people if you’re wondering why someone who is generally incompetent …
Month: January 2017
Brave (2012, Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell)
I’m glad movies like this exist. I can’t imagine how hard it was to be a girl in the past (or present) who had a mother (or a mother and a father) who believed that she should grow up to be a Lady. I think men had their struggles with male archetypes too, but it …
Meltdown: Days of Destruction (2006, JP Howell)
This is one of those terrible TV movies which are competently made at some level – the sound is fine, the lighting is okay, I never saw a boom mic in a shot – but are so unbelievably preposterous and poorly plotted that you wonder how they get made. (The answer is likely that many …
Brand Upon the Brain! (2006, Guy Maddin)
I didn’t go see this in theatres, with its live orchestra, and that is now to my eternal regret. Because I feel like that experience might have made this the greatest of all Maddin experiences. On the small screen, it’s just not quite as immersive as I assume it would have been in a theatre …
Magic and Loss (1992) by Lou Reed
Reed’s attempt to combine his concept album about the wonder of the world (specifically magic) with an extended eulogy for two of his recently deceased friends is a noble effort. But I’m not sure it’s a success.
Clash of the Titans (2010, Louis Leterrier)
I have only ever seen pieces of the ’80s Clash of the Titans, but my memory of it was that it was actually based on Greek myths. I emphasize this fact because this remake appears to not care about its sources in the slightest, pulling a creature from Norse mythology as its climactic bad guy, …
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013, Harald Zwart
This is one of the innumerable young adult fantasy franchises that has seemingly popped up out of nowhere over the last decade and a half. I watched it for the same reasons that I watch all of these – I enjoy bad movies. This one is, at times, better than a lot of the other …
A Boy and His Dog (1975, LQ Jones)
This is an interesting idea – I’m sure the novel is good – that is severely harmed by a lower than ideal budget and a poor choice of locations results in a pretty mixed bag of a film – one of those ’70s science fiction films where the idea is so much better than the …
Citizenfour (2014, Laura Poitras)
Like many of you, I paid attention to the Snowden leaks when they came out – as much attention as I could – and have followed The Intercept and others about the surveillance state since that time. But, on the other hand, my process of making my own life less accessible to the surveillance state …
Child of God (2013, James Franco)
This is a mess of a film, which feels like the work of a first time director. Far from it, as Franco has made tons of films only a few of which I was aware of; this is, impossibly, his 8th film.
Hotel California (1976) by Eagles
Who is this record for? Clearly, it’s for a lot of people, as it sold somewhere between 20 and 30 million copies. But listening to it, I don’t know who it’s for. The rock tracks feel like they appeal to one group of people, and the sappy, over-produced soft rock ballads to another group. It’s …
Captain America: Civil War (2016, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo)
What is this? Is it a 2 and a half hour prelude to another movie? Because it sure feels like that to me. It’s the nadir of this recent trend in blockbusters to split a movie into two halves. Because, though this is ostensibly a Captain America film, what it really feels like is just …
The Box (2009, Richard Kelly)
Richard Kelly continues his descent into utter nonsense with this completely unnecessary feature length film version of that old chestnut about the man with a box and $1 million dollars. (It’s worth noting that Kelly has not made a film since this one.)
A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) by Khaled Hosseini
This is, for the most part, a compelling, affecting and, at times, devastating novel of what it was like to live as a woman in Afghanistan for the last quarter century or so of the 20th century. It is particularly effective of giving insight into the men who hate women – into an entire society …
The Witch (2015, Robert Eggers)
Overrated. SPOILERS
Cathedrals of Culture (2014, Karim Aïnouz, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Margreth Olin, Robert Redford, Wim Wenders)
This is an omnibus film about various man-made architectural wonders in the world.
The MatchMaker (1997, Mark Joffe)
This is a fairly amusing Romantic Comedy with a ridiculous premise. (But then, aren’t most romantic comedies driven by ridiculous premises?)
Fast Food Nation (2002) by Eric Schlosser
Much of what Schlosser covers in this boo I was already familiar with, thanks to things like Food, Inc. But I’ve never read a book about the industrialization of food before and, as books are wont to do, Schlosser covers this in much more detail than any documentary you’re going to watch.