I had a piece in The Atlantic this afternoon on Big and the other body-swap movies (Vice Versa, 18 Again!, Like Father, Like Son) of the late ’80s. Here is an excerpt: The dominant, lasting image in all these films is that of a grown man acting like a child. In Big, Vice Versa, and Like Father, Like Son, the…
Last weekend, Anthony Flores and I tackled the AFI Docs Festival (formerly Silverdocs). Here is the second part in our series of capsule reviews (see part one here): Cutie and the Boxer When we first meet the famed Japanese painter Ushio Shinohara and his wife Noriko in Cutie and the Boxer, they come across as…
I’ve already covered in detail the close relationship President Obama has fostered with folks in Hollywood. The entertainment industry has always skewed liberal, but in this funny political era when nearly every industry has turned against national Democrats, the support provided by folks like George Clooney and Jeffrey Katzenberg was vital to Obama’s re-election. But…
Yesterday, AFI Docs concluded here in Washington, DC. Formerly known as SilverDocs, it is the premiere documentary film festival in the United States. For example, all six 2009 Academy Award-nominated documentary films were screened at Silverdocs 2008. This year, guest writer and documentary aficionado Anthony Flores and I tag-teamed the festival. Over the course of…
It’s a controversy as old as Hollywood itself with a contemporary twist. Here is a scenario that occurs fairly routinely: an actor to completes work on a film, gets worried that it’s not going to turn out well, and trashes the film in advance of its release. The example that jumps to mind is Marlon…
This interview is the third and final article in my series about “The Attack,” which opened in New York and DC this past Friday. It expands to several more cities next weekend. You can read my review at the Washington City Paper and an essay at Film School Rejects. Ziad Doueiri is an award-winning filmmaker, who…
This is a guest review from Anthony Flores. With revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance, government secrecy has been in the news. Two recent documentaries, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks by Alex Gibney and Dirty Wars by Rick Rowley, happen to tackle this subject. It should be a fortuitous opportunity to add…
In my ongoing quest to show my wife every movie I’ve ever known and loved, we found ourselves watching Sneakers last night, the 1992 Robert Redford vehicle about a group of hacking misfits who get blackmailed into stealing a codebreaking machine for the government. At least, that’s what they think they’re doing, but it gets complicated…
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