A maximalist, Mr. Luhrmann doesn’t simply want to rouse your laughter and tears: he wants to rouse you out of a sensory-overloaded stupor with jolts of passion and fabulous visions. That may make him sound a wee bit Brechtian, but he’s really just an old-fashioned movie man, the kind . . . . Continue Reading »
I don’t know when Lakeview Terrace will disappear from movie theatres. It features Samuel L. Jackson brandishing a chainsaw, so my best guess is "soon," which is a shame. A Chicago reviewer called it "one of the toughest racial dramas to come out of Hollywood since the fires . . . . Continue Reading »
The man himself in New York magazine : NY: Do you have a theory about why the culture keeps getting coarser? WA: The country has, over the years, moved to the right. And it’s possible that accompanying that move to the right, you also get a lessening of taste. But I don’t know if what . . . . Continue Reading »
I’ve already promoted Dan Mahoney’s excellent analysis of the socio-political import of 1968, especially from the perspective of France. Our own Peter Lawler provides his original critical commentary here cautioning us that as seminal as ‘68 was, a fuller picture of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (HDM) trilogy truly deserves all the epithets hurled at it, and Christians are gearing up for the December release of the film version of The Golden Compass , the first book in the trilogy. We needn’t worry. Hollywood is working its magic. Chris . . . . Continue Reading »
In his splendid performance history of Shakespeare, David Bevington frequently comments on the “scenic literalism” of film and television. Commenting on a TV production of As You Like It , he laments that the production “tells us where we are in the story by putting entire . . . . Continue Reading »
Ellen Belton points out that in the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice , “Elizabeth and Darcy (Colin Firth) are hardly ever frames together until well into the second half of the film, and when they are shown in the same shot, the effect is to emphasize the obstacles between them. In . . . . Continue Reading »
In his history of American movies (thanks again Ken Myers), David Thomson notes that “there was in the ordinary lifestile of the first moguls a steady habit of gambling.” David Selznick, he says, “lost a couple of million dollars in two years.” No wonder: Their whole . . . . Continue Reading »
Last year, we got the first season of Lost on DVD and were instantly hooked. These guys sure know how to hold an audience. But for me the hold is weakening as we begin watching the second seson, as it becomes increasingly clear that all these people escaped from a Sidney psyche ward. Flight 815 was . . . . Continue Reading »
In many ways, The Island is a silly movie: Long, repetitive, boring chase scenes, inexplicable explosions, impossible escapes, gaping holes in the plot, all filmed with MTV quick-cuts and apparently lit with strobe lights. Somewhere on the far side of the silliness, however, is a welcome indictment . . . . Continue Reading »
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