For many years, director David O. Russell was known for his eccentricity. His films were odd, idiosyncratic comedies such as Flirting with Disaster and I Heart Huckabees, which garnered cult followings but no mainstream success. Then there was the leaked video of Russell throwing a vicious tantrum on the set of Huckabees. Although Lily Tomlin,…
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, 2012 may be remembered as the year that we decided to take environmental concerns more seriously. If that is the case, the movies of this year have reflected this change in consciousness. Films as diverse as The Lorax, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and the upcoming Matt Damon vehicle Promised…
The line between art and entertainment is often blurry, especially when it comes to film. There are other times, however, when the contrast becomes perfectly clear, and if you ever sit down to watch The Comedy, you will know exactly what I am talking about. Tim Heidecker plays Swanson, a 35-year-old Brooklyn hipster who has…
Skyfall opens, as do all James Bond films, with an action sequence. Bond chases a villain through a Turkish marketplace, then onto a train, then onto the top of that train, and although the sequence is gripping and masterfully put together, it feels a bit tired. Two films after having our expectations of Bond reshuffled…
The president has just been re-elected to a second term, and he intends to use his political capital to pass a bill addressing the most important issue of the day. The bill has already passed the Senate but is opposed by a majority in the House. This former lawyer from Illinois turned beloved president is…
Critics were busy last weekend heaping praise upon big-time director Robert Zemeckis for Flight, which they deemed the kind of sophisticated adult drama Hollywood does not make much of anymore. But that film, with its sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll opening and its after-school special of an ending, is more like something a teenager thinks an adult film is…
Flight has been pitched to the general public as the kind of adult drama that doesn’t get made much anymore, and the first scene of the film confirms that assertion. It opens with a close-up of a naked woman. We zoom out to see a hotel room in a state of post-coital disarray – empty…
Thirteen years ago, The Matrix was released, and its themes of oppression and revolution connected deeply with critics and audiences alike. The filmmakers – siblings Andy and Lana Wachowski – were similarly oppressed by its success and have spent the last decade failing to live up to it. But now their time has come. In…
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