No better time than another energy crisis to revisit Tamara Jenkins’ Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), the story of young teen girl and her dysfunctional-cum-loving family’s attempt to navigate life in 1976 Los Angeles. Vivian (Natasha Lyonne) and her brothers, Ben (David Krumholtz) and Ricky (Eli Marienthal) are used to getting yelled at in the middle of the night, told to move from one fleabag apartment to the next by their 65-year-old dad Murray (Alan Arkin). They are, as Vivian... Read more
I’m 28 years old, which means that when I think teen movies, I think sex comedies. American Pie (1999), Superbad (2007), and Project X (2012)—these carefree slices of Y2K and aughts (and honorary aughts) self-discovery are my hallmarks of teen sexual theology. Uncool boys pursue girls. Boys rag on each other. Hijinks ensue. None of that 80s heartwarming stuff. No Molly Ringwald. Bring on the Clinton-Bush-Obama degradation. Bring on the inadequacy and the failure. But make it funny. What could... Read more
1998’s The Faculty (dir. Robert Rodriguez) breaks the golden rule: never mention a better work of art in yours. The diagnosis is typically fatal. The viewer’s mind trails off, thinking about what could’ve been, the more entertaining time they could be having. This is always a risk when watching writer Kevin Williamson’s films [other credits include Scream (1996), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999) and Dawson’s Creek (1998-2003)], since his brand of satire doesn’t... Read more
I grew up with Office Space (1999). It’s with us even now, the giggles to “yeah…I’m gonna have to ask you to…” and the famous printer scene (one version of which stands at over 4 million views on YouTube). Even in the book I’m reading right now about workplace massacres, Going Postal by Mark Ames, the movie is a constant refrain, serving to punctuate not just chapters, but even sections of chapters, as if Mike Judge had captured it. You... Read more
R.W. Fassbinder’s Faustrecht der Freiheit (1975) is usually translated Fox and His Friends. That title is coy and ironic, since our man Fox is a walking “with friends like these…” bit. It does, however, capture the alliteration of the German original and something of Fassbinder’s unhinged and biting sense of humor [most prominently displayed in Satan’s Brew (1976)]. A more literal rendering might be Fistfight for Freedom or Freedom’s Law of the Jungle; these distill things down. Fox comes from... Read more
It ain’t easy to watch movies when you’ve got a new puppy and there’s something decaying in your crawlspace. It’s upsetting my asthma. We think it’s a mouse. The pest control guy is supposed to be here soon. Either way, it turns out if a teething puppy smells something that rank, he’ll spend countless hours trying to claw through your carpet, pulling up rugs and trying to tear out their innards like a buzzard getting ready for a banquet on... Read more
David O. Russell seems like the kind of guy who sees his life and work as necromantic offerings, a series of hocuses and pocuses in the hopes of summoning Dr. Freud back from the grave. His debut, Spanking the Monkey (1994) is about the taboo (you know the one). More recently he’s admitted to (his version) inappropriately checking up on the development of his trans-niece or (her version) unwantedly fondling her in a garage. Russell seems like a man who... Read more
When a messiah disappears believers have a bit of a problem on their hands: this guy came to save people, establish justice, and (usually) end the world, and now he’s with us no more—what to do? What to do? He can’t have failed, after all (if he did then, like the followers of Bar Kokhba, his people probably disappeared into the morass of history). The most common answer is occultation, that is, actually he’s alive and doing fine, he’s just... Read more
Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned—I’m reviewing another Kevin Smith movie, the one that, last week, I said a paragraph or two couldn’t explain. Turns out I still think what I thought almost seven days ago (crazy, right?) and I figure it’s about time to lay out why Chasing Amy (1997) is up there with Something Wild (1986) and Boys and Girls (2000) among my favorite of the post-Golden Age romantic comedies (that last one really, really requires some... Read more
I’m in a peculiar position. I left New Jersey for college (went all the way to New England, I did), studied abroad in the UK, lived in Germany on-and-off, traveled across Europe, and, even during my homecoming, came back to do my PhD at a university that—as far as most Jersey residents are concerned—isn’t really in New Jersey. And yet here I am. I live in the house where I grew up, several degrees stronger, a lot poorer, married, navigating... Read more
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