Zach Vasquez, Author at Crooked Marquee

05/30/201801/12/2019inMovies, Looking Backby Zach Vasquez

The Barely Fictionalized Movie Versions of Philip Roth

This month saw the passing of Philip Roth, as important — and no less controversial — a figure to the field […]

05/23/201801/12/2019inMovies, Looking Backby Zach Vasquez

Mary Shelley and Other Speculative Literary Biopics

The English Romantic writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley lived about as cinematic a life as one could, filled with historic achievement, tortuous […]

05/09/201801/12/2019inMovies, Looking Backby Zach Vasquez

Redbelt: David Mamet’s Last Stand

This month marks the 10th anniversary of David Mamet’s mixed-martial-arts thriller Redbelt. In the intervening years, Mamet — the preeminent American […]

04/17/201801/12/2019inMovies, Looking Back, On the Marqueeby Zach Vasquez

The Death of Stalin and the Canon of Dystopian Farce

‘If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait till I get through with it.’ — Rufus T. Firefly, Duck […]

03/21/201805/10/2019inMovies, Looking Back, On the Marqueeby Zach Vasquez

Isle of Plague Dogs: The Animated Works of Wes Anderson and Martin Rosen

Animation saved Wes Anderson from self-parody. By the time he released his fifth feature, the exotic Indian travelogue The Darjeeling Limited […]

01/30/201806/28/2018inMovies, On the Marqueeby Zach Vasquez

‘Perhaps I’m Looking For Trouble’: The Rebellious Women of Phantom Thread and Lady Macbeth

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, Phantom Thread, has the director working in full Gothic romance mode. Set in post-war London and […]

12/26/201706/28/2018inLooking Back, Moviesby Zach Vasquez

Zach Vasquez Says Don’t Forget: Colossal

Colossal seems destined to become a cult film, one that we’ll look back on and wonder how audiences missed it. Though […]

12/26/201706/28/2018inLooking Back, Moviesby Zach Vasquez

Zach Vasquez Says Don’t Forget: I, Olga Hepnarová

With all due respect to troubled figure skaters from the ‘90s, if you see only one I, [Woman’s Name] movie this […]

12/04/201705/07/2019inMovies, On the Marqueeby Zach Vasquez

A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Grace and Forgiveness in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Lapsed Catholic though he is, Martin McDonagh, the Irish (by way of London) playwright-turned-filmmaker loves to explore the interconnected themes of […]