Seems like I’ve been bouncing around nonstop since the holidays began, but here’s what’s been in my recreational diet of late. FILM Inherent Vice (2014) – All due respect to Paul Thomas Anderson, but I went into this one a little skeptical about how well Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice was going to translate to film – … Read moreJanuary Love List
Amid travels over the past month, here’s what’s been rolling by in front of my face. BOOKS Digital Death – A. David Lewis, one of the co-editors on this collection of essays, was kind enough to let me read through an advance copy a few weeks ago – and it really is an excellent piece of … Read moreOctober Love List
I’ve run into a handful of people this summer who asked me what I’m reading lately. It seemed like a roundup might be in order. Here’s what I’ve been looking at and listening to lately. FILM Snowpiercer (2013) – Bong Joon-ho had a heck of a time getting this film to the U.S. market, but I’m … Read moreAugust Love List
Fair warning here. This review contains some spoilers. As an event in history, director Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film is almost impossible to consider apart from two tragedies—the Aurora shooting and the death of Heath Ledger that forever colored “Batman: The Dark Knight.” In turn, both of those events have forever colored how people discuss … Read moreReview: ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012)
Every time I see Robert Pattinson in an image from David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis adaptation, I can’t help but think how impossible it sounds to get Twilight readers buying Don DeLillo books. (I remember picking up my hardcover up off the clearance shelf at a Barnes & Noble years ago.) But I guess stranger things have … Read moreNew ‘Cosmopolis’ teaser
Hollywood has its formulas for action flicks, screenwriters have their story beat quotas and Marvel Studios superhero films have to straddle the demands of savvy readers paying to see characters they love and the demands of audience members who have never heard of Captain America’s younger sidekick. This year, Marvel tasked Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor” with … Read moreReview: “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011)
“X-Men: First Class” seemed like it could be the odd one out as 20th Century Fox’s entry on an ambitious slate of Marvel Comics-based movies this year. Director Matthew Vaughn turned the clock back to 1962 make an origin story/period piece, that may or may not be in continuity with previous X-films. (Indeed, I’ll be … Read moreReview: ‘X-Men: First Class’ (2011)
Big budgets and special effects have not always been kind to Marvel movies. Ang Lee’s “Hulk” (2003), for instance, featured an utterly and profoundly abstract transformation by Nick Nolte’s character into a hodgepodge of Zzzax and the Absorbing Man. Jon Favreau’s ending for “Iron Man 2” (2010) opted for a shock’n awe treatment that was … Read moreReview: ‘Thor’ (2011)