I came away from this week’s excellent episode of The Newsroom with one overriding message: journalism is a tough racket. For weeks, the News Night team has been tracking down evidence in support of the Operation Genoa story. They found the retired general and the two soldiers who participated in the attack. They stumbled upon…
…the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman in the sequel to Man of Steel. From his twitter feed: “@SenatorLeahy: Ben’s a great pick for #Batman & a New Englander to boot. I guess that means I’m out of the running…” In case you missed it, one of Leahy’s well-known eccentricities is that he’s a huge…
In case you were doing other things last night and, you know, have a life, here’s the news: Ben Affleck will play Bruce Wayne/Batman in the recently-announced sequel to Man of Steel, informally known as Batman vs. Superman. Reaction to the news has been…well, exactly as bad you might expect. Even though Affleck has officially…
When the complete history of The Newsroom is written, the sixth episode of season two should be remembered as the moment it went from an uneven drama with political overtones to outright propaganda. There’s just no other way to describe it anymore. In season two, Aaron Sorkin’s motivations have been revealed: he is hell-bent on…
On the surface, The Butler might seem like an awfully conservative film. It certainly takes the form of one of those safe historical epics that Hollywood loves to put out around Oscar time – its rush through eighty years of history is a little reminiscent of the reactionary Forrest Gump. But as a movie that…
I’ve got a new post up at Film School Rejects on Prince Avalanche, the refreshing new film by David Gordon Green. It’s a return to from for the talented but frustrating director. Here’s an excerpt: In its style and its themes, Avalanche melds the two disparate eras of his career, but what’s remarkable is how aware Green…
I was back in The Atlantic today writing about the use of animals in film and television. Here’s an excerpt: Lately, though, the issue has been making headlines with surprising frequency. Last year, HBO’s Luck was canceled amid protests over the deaths of two horses on set. Similarly, Peter Jackson was criticized for the deaths of up to…
The prevailing storyline about the summer movies of 2013 has revolved around the seemingly endless series of high-profile flops. After Earth, White House Down, and The Lone Ranger were all certified failures, while Pacific Rim, Oblivion, and Pain and Gain also significantly underperformed. But the other consistent and somewhat surprising feature of this summer’s multiplex…
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