Latest Posts
Bombast #94
The laws of profit, galloping greed, and the worship of Mammon are well-represented lately at the movies with the appearance of a crop of lavish movies about acquisitive lust, movies where the celebration of excess acts simultaneously as a critique of same. The old DeMille ethos rides high: Six reels of sin, one of salvation! Among the newly-erected cinematic Babylons are Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, and now Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring.Read more
Viva Mabuse! #39: Silk
Pre-Code as a phenomenon has never been a secret—it’s an integral slice of film history that emerged like a young racehorse with the coming of talkies, but then voluntarily harnessed and gelded thanks to public protest and threats of government censorship. Ironically, the Code was in one form or another on the books before sound arrived in 1927, but it wasn’t enforced until 1934, which is the window we’re looking through to an infinite parade of half-nude Stanwycks and Harlows stepping in and out of the shower.Read more
On the Couch: Frances Ha
Frances Ha is a film about a dancer who doesn’t really dance, has a best friend who doesn’t really like her and an apartment she doesn’t really live in. But, she’s pretty okay with it. Frances is—get this—an optimist. I know. But since we normally skew toward the darker side of things here at On The Couch, this week I’m celebrating the optimists of film—those headstrong believers who keep on smiling even though us haters gonna hate.Read more
Docutopia #48: Serious Sensationalism—The Alex Gibney Doc Factory
In his latest film, We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, Alex Gibney once again treads a fine line between serious journalism and sexed-up storytelling, offering both a penetrating critique of the way that powerful people protect their secrets, be they in the U.S. government or its most famous whistleblower, Julian Assange, as well as more salacious revelations about the sexuality of the characters involved.Read more
Films vs. Movies #69: Changing of the Guard
Jim loves the movies of J.J. Abrams so much that it’s wreaking havoc on his fandom hierarchy. Read more
Here & Now & Then: 1996
In terms of faithfulness to source material and oversimplification of plot and theme, kids’ movies based on books tend to get a free pass. Historically, they have been taken from fairy tales or novels that were themselves written for juveniles. This is why Disney’s 1996 adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame was and remains so strikingly odd, based on a novel from 1831 that was not written with tots in mind. Read more
