DePaul’s Carolyn Bronstein reviews the forthcoming biopic of Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace at the Atlantic . It’s not easy reading: “Linda died at 53 after a Denver automobile accident, but her account of sexual slavery on the set of Deep Throat is preserved in her 1980 . . . . Continue Reading »
In the NYRB , Steve Coll complains about the depiction of torture in Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty . The film poses as a form of journalism, flashing a “based on real events” in the early frames. Coll doesn’t think it measures up. For one thing, the film . . . . Continue Reading »
My friend John Barach pointed me to an interview with Peter Jackson in which Jackson explained the reasons for the change in the ending of the LOTR. Jackson did not, he claims, want to make Frodo heroic; he wanted to leave Frodo with the sense that he failed. Jackson said, “we still tried to . . . . Continue Reading »
At the Real Clear Religion web site, Jeffrey Weiss nails the problem with Peter Jackson’s rendition of Tolkein. Summing up the climax of the Lord of the Rings , Weiss writes: “In book and film, Frodo has heroically carried the Ring to the one spot where it can be destroyed. Instead, he . . . . Continue Reading »
Rebutting Jonathan Last’s portrait of Batman as the comic book answer to liberalism, Travis Smith (writing at the Weekly Standard site) argues that Spiderman is the better antidote to modernity: “The essential difference between Spider-Man and Batman can be detected in their styles: . . . . Continue Reading »
Earlier this month I fell ill with the horrible flu that is going around and lying abed in misery decided not to pay too much attention to the news for sanity’s sake. Of course, the space between not too much and no attention leaves plenty of room for discouragement and distress. . . . . Continue Reading »
When it first appeared, Tarkovsky’s Stalker: A Film by Andrei Tarkovsky was seen as a parable of totalitarian ruin. Since the curtain came down, it has a more universal reach. David Thomson ( “Have You Seen . . . ?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films , 822) sees in it . . . . Continue Reading »
The New York Review of Books review of Daniel Mendelsohn’s Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture (New York Review Collections) , the reviewer summarizes Mendelsohn’s comparison of Avatar and Wizard of Oz . Dorothy awakens at the end, Mendelsohn writes, . . . . Continue Reading »
This and the next will be the last songbook posts on pop-music movies for a while. Despite my doing five(!) posts on ALMOST FAMOUS , two on the SCHOOL OF ROCK, and an epic one on THE DOORS, I do think that among my list of pop-music films , THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is the standout in terms of sheer . . . . Continue Reading »
I’ve been thinking a little bit about the 1980s comedy Caddyshack and what that movie might tell us about our changing perceptions of the wealthy. The fellow that was originally supposed to be the main character was a young caddie who was trying to figure out how to get to college without . . . . Continue Reading »
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