Parsing out the politics of a Hollywood film can be tricky. What makes for a conservative film? Or a progressive one? Unless the film is about a politician or political issue, you have to analyze the values embedded in its themes, plot, and characters, and the conclusions are always debatable. It has gotten easier, however,…
It’s that silly time of year again. I’m not talking about the holidays; no, it’s the season of Top 10 lists that gets me down. All across the country, film critics are toiling in front of warm laptops trying to decide which movies were the best of the year. I understand why these lists are…
2013 was not the year you thought it was. The prevailing storyline of the first eight months of the year was that Hollywood was broken, as evidence by a high number of big-budget flops: Jack the Giant Slayer, The Lone Ranger, White House Down, After Earth, R.I.P.D., etc. But underneath the studio failures burned the…
When The Hunger Games was released into theaters in 2012, critics spent as much time debating its politics as they did reviewing the film. Almost everyone felt that the film had a partisan message, but few agreed as to which side it was actually on. Writers from Forbes and Fox News saw the film, with…
A lot of new followers this week, so I thought I would take this opportunity to welcome you all and share some of my latest work. Most of my work is now published elsewhere – this blog has become a place for the occasional post that doesn’t quite fit on other sites – but I…
This new report on gun violence in film has been getting a lot of play the last few days. Analyzing the incidents of gun violence in the top-grossing American films, the authors concluded that the incidents of gun violence in movies rated PG-13 have nearly tripled since 1985. Last year – for the first time…
Back in August, I wrote in The Atlantic that we might be reaching a significant moment in the animal rights movement: the end of the use of animals in entertainment. From a new federal regulation regarding chimpanzees to the success of Blackfish, this summer’s hit documentary on the abuse suffered by animals at SeaWorld, there…
I hadn’t seen Dazed and Confused in five years or so before attending its 20th anniversary screening at the New York Film Festival on Thursday. But from the moment that the smoky opening tones of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” filled the theater, I realized why Richard Linklater’s film will never get old or dated: because it…
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