Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a profound disappointment, but I guess we already knew that. Critics and audiences were lining up to criticize his adaptation of the classic American novel before it even opened. While any adaptation of a … Continue reading
At Any Price is a startling accomplishment: a deeply populist film about an issue affecting rural America and featuring a genuine movie star. Dennis Quaid may not be Hollywood’s hot young thing anymore, but he has improved with age, and … Continue reading
Much has been written about the recent shift in Matthew McConaughey’s career. After years of awful rom-coms like Failure to Launch and Ghost of Girlfriends Past, there has been a significant and sudden change in his work, and the excitement amongst critics … Continue reading
It’s hard to mock Washington these days because Washington is doing such a good job of mocking itself. Our politics have become parody, and political comedy has become redundant. It’s why 1600 Penn didn’t resonate with anyone. Veep has scored … Continue reading
Is it too much to expect originality from a summer blockbuster these days? At this point in our era of poll-testing and demographics-driven production, we should accept this simple fact: no studio is going to spend $120 million, the cost … Continue reading
Personally, I can’t hear Robert Redford utter the word “secrets” without my mind drifting back to Sneakers, the 1992 minor cult classic in which Redford portrayed a computer hacker and former countercultural leader who avoids arrest and goes underground for twenty-five … Continue reading
Last season, as I reviewed and analyzed every episode of season one of Veep, I noted on more than one occasion that nothing much changed from episode to episode. Vice-President Selina Meyer continuously strove for relevance in the political arena. … Continue reading
Spring break. Spring break. Spring break. The words form a siren song in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, a recurring dream that lures American boys and girls to their demise. When four young American teenagers rob a restaurant so that they … Continue reading
