February 2012
1 post
7 tags
Film: Crazy Horse
There were six people in the audience for Frederick Wiseman’s newest documentary, titled “Crazy Horse,” when I attended at the Downtown Independent last night. It’s hard not to take this fact as something of an indictment, although it was just one show of several this weekend, and perhaps the paucity of audience members was just an accident of timing. Perhaps the 9:30 p.m. showing was overfull....
December 2011
1 post
3 tags
Why the David Denby story is nonsense
You’ve probably already heard the story, but if not, here’s a brief retelling of the story that, needlessly, seems to have all of Hollywood in an uproar. Sony Pictures allowed criticis a sneak preview of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” but imposed an embargo. David Denby, film critic for the New Yorker, broke the embargo, publishing an enthusiastic review a week before Sony would have liked...
November 2011
9 posts
3 tags
Film: Twilight: Breaking Dawn
I went to the first “Twilight” film when it debuted in 2008, not having read the Stephenie Meyer book upon which it was based, but intensely curious. It was a midnight screening at Block E downtown, and I wasn’t sure who, aside from me, might show up for it. It turned out that the theater was nearly full, mostly with young women, most of whom had come in groups. I quickly...
2 tags
Film: Immortals
A few years ago I heard an interview with Russell Crowe, which I shall paraphrase. He was asked about “Gladiator,” and he opined that, although it took a drubbing from a few critics, its popular success would lead to a slew of similar films, and after watching those, in retrospect, we would realize how good “Gladiator” was.
Well, here’s to you, Russell...
2 tags
Film: The Skin I Live In
Like a lot of kids, I grew up reading comic books. I wasn’t especially more devoted to them than anybody else, and never grew into somebody who obsessively collects from a single series, and rushes to the comic-books store when the new releases are shelved, a credit card in one hand, a polypropolyene bag with acid-free cardboard backing in the other.
But I suspect I was a more curious...
2 tags
Podcast: Jordan, Jesse, Go!
I’ve been listening to a lot of the podcast called Jordan, Jesse Go! lately, and I’m a bit uncertain as to why. Certainly the show has its enjoyable qualities, which would encourage an occasional — or even weekly — listen. It consists of about an hour of gabbing between two friends. The first is Jesse Thorn, who also hosts The Sound of Young America, a very good interview...
2 tags
Film: The Catechism Cataclysm
I recently mentioned attending “Punisher: War Zone” at the New Beverly as part of Patton Oswalt’s Deeper in the Dark series, but there was another film playing on that bill, and I feel I should mention it, as it’s utterly mad.
The film is titled “The Catechism Cataclysm,” made by a man named Todd Rohal, who the internet tells me was once badly frightened as a...
1 tag
Art: Neck Face and Fuck This Life at New Image Art
I want to take a moment to talk about going to a recent exhibit at the New Image Art Gallery on Santa Monica, because it was extraordinarily satisfying. You know you’re going to see something worthwhile when its a bit of an ordeal. Art is always best when there is a velvet rope thrown across it, either literally or figuratively.
There were posters hung around Los Angeles that look like an...
2 tags
Film: Drive
“Drive” is getting a lot of people excited nowadays. It’s a heist-gone-wrong film, mostly set around the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles — one of my old neighborhoods, and I just complained that films rarely actually look like the places where they are set. But this looks like Echo Park, with its peeled-paint storefronts and unexpectedly lush esplanade. This was once the home...
2 tags
Film: Punisher: War Zone
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I listen to a podcast called “How Did This Get Made,” which celebrates, after a fashion, Hollywood’s big-budget oddities. This week, host Paul Scheer excitedly declared that they would soon be examining a real find. It was a comic book adaption that tanked in the box office when released in 2008, called “Punisher: War Zone.” However,...
2 tags
Film: Footloose
I’d like to talk about the topic of film remakes for a moment. I’m always a bit surprised at how upset they make some people.
There seemed to be some angry chatter online about the remake of “Footloose,” a film that was first made in 1984 with Kevin Bacon playing a young man who moves to a southern town that has forbidden dancing.
The original was a pleasant enough...