Based on a 1990 novel by Richard Ford, Wildlife has a literary feel to it and comes across as a well-acted, well-produced drama for adults. Its protagonist is a kid, though: 14-year-old Joe Brinson (Ed Oxenbould), an only child who’s witnessing the unraveling of his family in Montana in 1960. Joe’s directionless father, Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal), […]
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Prolific Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Silva had five movies play at Sundance before Tyrel premiered there, including two in the same year (Magic Magic and Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus, 2013). He introduced a screening of Tyrel, which is about race relations, by saying, “It’s a movie that was specifically designed for Americans. So enjoy it … […]
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It’s fitting that the most iconic image from the films of David Cronenberg is the exploding head from Scanners (1981). Cronenberg’s stories contain so many complex ideas and themes that any single attempt to wrap one’s head around them seems a risky prospect. And yet, the popular consensus tends to divide them into two basic […]
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Superman (called Superman: The Movie in advertising) was released on Dec. 15, 1978, but it was supposed to come out in June to coincide more closely with the 40th anniversary of the big guy’s April 1938 comic book debut. Buried in that factoid is the realization that Superman: The Movie is now as old as […]
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Christmas stories and tales of space exploration both appeal to an audience’s sense of wonder, so it’s only natural that filmmakers have occasionally gone to both wells simultaneously. There’s a world of difference, however, between crass kiddie fare like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) and the Flaming Lips’ midnight cult-ready Christmas on Mars (produced […]
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According to Hollywood lore and its IMDb trivia page, Twins was dreamt up during a desperate bathroom break by two writers whose only prepared pitch had just been shot down. I can’t find a credible source for that, but do I really need one? Have you seen Twins? Have you seen the poster for Twins? […]
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You wouldn’t want to make them the staple of your cinematic diet, but movies where the main characters are all corrupt or vain are often satisfying because they let us enjoy the audacity of bad behavior without suffering the consequences of it. Never is that more true than when the people in question are politicians […]
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It’s a family affair in Clara’s Ghost, written and directed by — am I reading this right? — “Bridey” Elliott? That seems like a typo. She’s the daughter of Chris Elliott and sister of Abby Elliott. Mom is Paula Niedert Elliott, who was a Late Night with David Letterman staffer when Chris worked there. The whole […]
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Racism is solved one moron at a time in Green Book, a lighthearted, vaguely true story set in 1962, with bigoted Bronx-Italian meathead Tony “Lip” Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) hired as chauffeur and bodyguard for refined black concert pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) as he tours the racist Midwest and the RACIST-racist South. Forced to […]
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The title Christmas Evil (also released as You Better Watch You) does not promise a complex psychological drama, and anyone going into Lewis Jackson’s 1980 holiday horror movie probably doesn’t expect anything more than a guy in a Santa suit killing people. Jackson does get around to that eventually, but the guy in the suit, […]
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Every year, I revisit my favorite film franchise, Rocky. Every year, I’m questioned by those around me why I feel the need to do so. “Why do you feel the need to watch the same 14 hours of content every year?” my girlfriend would say. “Isn’t today’s America a little too complicated for this sort […]
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You know how some movies end with freeze-frames of each of the main characters and a brief summary of where their lives went after that? And you know how most movies don’t do that but should? We want to fix that. We’ll start with A Christmas Story. (We’re ignoring the two sequels, which cancel each […]
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