First Cow It opens boldly, with three minutes of credits. Just white font on a black screen. When was the last time you saw that outside of a Woody Allen movie? Movies don’t have opening credits anymore because we don’t have the attention span for it. Or they think we don’t. Next, we get the…
My ongoing quest to write as many words about the films of 2020 as possible continues. If you’re interested, check out parts one, two, and three. 5. Sorry We Missed You I live in the country, where there’s a lot of space between houses. I also have five dogs who all need to be walked,…
10. Sound of Metal The impressive debut film from director Darius Marder is winning raves for its sound design, which replicates the experience of being hearing impaired, at various levels, for the viewer. Rightly so; it’s a neat trick, and it helps to immerse the viewer in the soul of its lead character. But when…
In every possible way, Pete’s Dragon is a throwback to a simpler time. The family fairy tale, a remake of an unremarkable 1977 Disney movie, takes place in a world where small towns have no chain stores and no one carries a cell phone. It could be the 1950s or just a forgotten town in…
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains a discussion of the plot and ending of “The BFG.” Consider yourself warned. For ninety minutes, The BFG is one of the most intimate, apolitical movies Steven Spielberg has ever made. Despite his reputation as a popcorn auteur, Spielberg’s work has always carried at least a hint of politics, even…
Dear Readers, Remember me? No worries if you don’t. It has been a slow summer of criticism for me, and for a variety of reasons. First and foremost is that, as I get older, I have less and less patience for the slew of commercial crapola that Hollywood spews out during the warmer months, and so I’ve…
March and April are not the most exciting months for movie-going, with a slew of eccentric indies not strong enough for awards season and the season of summer blockbusters is only just getting started. In the last couple months, I did a little introspection on the subject of racial movies, looked back (and forward) at one…
The highlight of my 2015 was giving a speech at the Smithsonian on the Oscars, but I did a little writing, too. In January and February, I reviewed some terrific independent films and shared my thoughts on the real star of Birdman, negative campaigns in Hollywood, the political controversy over American Sniper, and the feminism…
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