My distate for the stone-faced British comedian Rowan Atkinson is well-documented, as is my loathing for his signature creation, Mr. Bean. I like subtle, sophisticated verbal comedy as much as the next guy, but Atkinson takes it too far; I’ve been with people who stare at his almost subliminal act without a hint of a smile, unaware that the turkey-on-the-head routine is a joke.
If Hulk was a bomb, why are people calling The Incredible Hulk a success five years later?
A rule to live by: Don’t bet against computer-animated movies for kids. For example: Kung Fu Panda topped this week’s Box Office Power Rankings by a wide margin, finally knocking Iron Man off its perch.
Dawn is afraid of her body, but it’s the boys who are in trouble. She is a star in a local abstinence program – a heartfelt, eloquent advocate for preserving virginity – but she’s not immune to the temptations of the flesh. One night, while fantasizing about the cute boy she just met, her hand creeps down … but she can’t do it. Perhaps she knows instinctively what a handful of boys and men are about to discover in Teeth: She has a bloodthirsty vagina.
To mark the fifth birthday of Culture Snob – born July 10, 2003 – I’ll be hosting the Self-Involvement Blog-a-thon from Wednesday, July 9, to Sunday, July 13. Put simply, the Self-Involvement Blog-a-thon is about the intersection of movies and life. My hope is that it will serve as a celebration of the power of the moving picture removed from the critical, cultural, and financial contexts in which it is typically considered.
The few weeks that I neglected the Box Office Power Rankings featured two hotly anticipated movies – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Sex and the City – as well as the second chapter in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Iron Man kicked all their asses, with a little help.
When you think of David Cronenberg, you’re likely to see fusion: Brundlefly, a living typewriter, a gun made of bones. All of those are the work of Carol Spier, Cronenberg’s art director (from Fast Company through Videodrome) and production designer (from The Dead Zone forward, with the exception of Spider).
I’m guessing that reading about Speed Racer is a hell of a lot more fun than seeing it, but I’ll never have the movie experience.
I’m late to the party as usual, but this bellyache looks like it’s going to stick around for a while: Paid movie critics are a dying breed! The horror! The horror! I can’t get worked up too much.
The Orphanage has one indelible image, and that’s plenty. It also has a sly current of grief and healing that hits home mostly on reflection, after cold recognitions and resonances sink in.