In the opening of 28 Weeks Later, Don (Robert Carlyle) faces a dilemma: He can leave his wife to die and run like hell on the off chance that he might outrun the “infected,” or he can stay with her and face a gruesome end. He runs like hell, and looks back to see his wife attacked. This is the movie writ small, laying the groundwork for more impossible choices.
Have you calmed down yet? Are you over the orgasmic delight you felt at the way David Chase defied all predictions about the end of his beloved series, The Sopranos? Have you recovered from your rage about ambiguity, a lack of closure, and Journey? Good. Now let’s clear a few things up.
Despite (and because of) its pedigree, Natural Born Killers is undoubtedly trashy, reveling in the killing spree of Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) and joyfully joining in the public and media fascination with mass murderers. And it’s an invigorating, brilliantly assembled movie celebrating the way that cinema can make the ugliest human behavior thrilling.
The reasons for recording (with Bride of Culture Snob) this commentary track to The Prestige are many and simple:
Brevity is the soul of wit, that motherfucker Shakespeare once wrote, and even though he’s wrong, I’ll keep this short. RogerEbert.com editor Jim Emerson has created the Contrarianism Blog-a-thon. I will enlighten you on how to be a conventional contrarian.
Marnie is narratively and technically artless – literal and obvious and shrill and nearly naked in its themes and concerns, a story clumsily built around Freudian repression. Yet Marnie is not the travesty many people think.
In Inside Man, director Spike Lee and screenwriter Russell Gerwitz announce early that nothing too traumatic will befall any of the characters, and then they keep that promise; they implicitly give the audience permission to enjoy the film.
The suspension of disbelief, to borrow a hackneyed maxim, is a privilege, not a right; you need to earn it. And last year’s holiday hit The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe doesn’t.
The true subject of Albert Brooks’ Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is the fact that most people don’t find Albert Brooks funny. That sounds sour, and it sells the movie short, but it’s fundamentally true. Plus: V for Vendetta.
The Netflix Rolling Roadshow is doubtlessly a brilliant piece of marketing, but the core concept celebrates the sense of place that movies can conjure or capture. But none of this summer’s selections can match the inspiration behind the showing of Field of Dreams this past Friday at Left and Center Field of Dreams.
