Busy week and brief write-up. Over on the Criterion Channel, I glimpsed a Robert Mitchum noir, Crossfire (1947), that gave me more than I bargained for. I just wanted to watch Mitchum do his thing. Lurid late-40s shadows and a gritty story appeared as two (semi-expected) pluses. But Crossfire offers more than typical noir fare. We remember these films for their post-war cynicism. They form a set of grim reflections indicative of an easily forgotten window between the Depression and... Read more
On Warren Zevon’s 1989 dystopian concept album Transverse City, there is a song called “Networking.” The chorus goes: Networking, I’m user friendly. Networking, I install with ease. Data processed, truly Basic. I will upload you, you can download me. Thirteen years earlier, MGM released Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976), a satire of the US television industry in which an Edward R. Murrow-esque new anchor ages his way into latter-day prophethood. His show excoriating the decadence and paltriness of late 70s America... Read more
I’m a bit rundown this week/weekend, so I’ll leave you with a recommendation rather than a review (if I ever really write reviews). Go watch Jackie Chan’s Miracles (1989), an adaptation of two Capra movies by way of Hong Kong action stardom. The subtitling on the Criterion Channel version is faltering at best. Combine that with the film’s various references to intra-Chinese linguistic, geographic, and social differences and many of the plot’s finer contours prove hard to access as a... Read more
I’d like to defend a film you’ve likely not heard of. 2001’s Tart comes in for varied criticisms: amateurish acting, unforgivable cinematography, plotless-ness, and vapid, trope-filled characters. I only chose to watch it because Y2K movies (those made between, say, 1998-2002) have a special place in my heart. Color me surprised when I tuned in to YouTube’s free copy. While the performances are at times TV-esque, Tart brims with the talent of the day. Dominique Swain, Mark Renfro, Mischa Barton,... Read more
2010 was a lonely year to be a technophobe, at least in my then-tinier bubble. Soon, I’d be in college telling friends their decision to study the sciences was irresponsible. What could that tell us about the soul and ourselves? Fincher’s The Social Network (2010) made my Luddism a bit less lonely. I’ve grown a bit more accommodating of the hard sciences since then, though my views on tech have probably only hardened. It feels good to be proven right,... Read more
It all started with Jaws (1975). Through decades of changes—digital recording, CGI, the whole gamut—the blockbuster has remained the primary mode for large studios. Push national marketing, give it a summer release, and pray to the ghost of Louis B. Mayer that the greenbacks will find their way into huge sacks marked with dollar signs. I watched the movie dozens of times as a kid. I can still ring out the tune our three protagonist sing late night on their... Read more
The Innocents (1961) has sat on my watchlist, stealing glances and looking disappointed, for years. Avid film watchers know the feeling all too well. It’s a classic for a reason; its reputation precedes it. That very feeling, however, keeps you from taking it in. Do I want to be disappointed? Am in the mood for something old enough to be my father? How spooky could a 60s haunted house movie be anyway? I’m glad, as usual in these cases, that... Read more
“Put the planter on a horse, and he’ll ride to his own death.” So says the matriarch of the Holland family, descendants of the white slave-owning settlers who came to the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian centuries ago. She speaks of her own son, Wesley Rand (James Ellison), who drinks too much and bickers with his half-brother, Paul Holland (Tom Conway). The two once loved the same woman, Tom’s wife Jessica (Christine Gordon). She, now catatonic, sleepwalks around their palatial... Read more
I’ve taken the Ken Russell plunge. First, The Devils (1971), the writer-director’s valediction to Catholicism, to which he’d converted in the 50s, by way of a real-life story of possession and Richelieu-ian Machtpolitik in 17th-century France. Then Altered States (1980), his cusp-of-the-80s tale of one man’s quest for truth. In this case, however, megalomania breeds not Ahab’s destruction but supra-Boomer self-realization. On the other side of tech guru ayahuasca tourism and peyote churches run by Mormon conmen, this paean to... Read more
I’m embarrassed to say I’ve not read an entire Thomas Pynchon book. Friends tell me he’s right up my alley: goofy, para-political, stylistically zany. All I’ve got for now are the film adaptations. Paul Thomas Anderson, thank God, seems to enjoy turning Pynchon’s arcane tomes into artifacts for the silver screen. We had Inherent Vice (2014), and now we have One Battle After Another (2025), based on Pynchon’s Vineland (1990). Let’s get it out of the way: PTA has never... Read more
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