Looking Closer
Rotten Tomatoes has just compiled their list of the Best-Reviewed Films of 2007 (so far). And I am not at all surprised to see which film holds a commanding lead. What’s the best film of the year so far according to you? Read more
Rotten Tomatoes has just compiled their list of the Best-Reviewed Films of 2007 (so far). And I am not at all surprised to see which film holds a commanding lead. What’s the best film of the year so far according to you? Read more
Here’s one of my favorite music critics reviewing a new album from one of my favorite artists. And the news is very good. Beauty and Crime is, without reservation, the defining creative moment of Suzanne Vega’s career thus far, and a morally and emotionally communicative recording that instructs even as it confesses from inside, and reports from the margins and becomes, in its graceful impurity, a vision that is singular and utterly direct. Read more
More Christians line up to condemn Harry Potter as the devil’s business… at Christian Today (not to be confused with Christianity Today.) While they’re at it, why not blacklist Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the tales of King Arthur, and Beauty and the Beast as well? Those stories are full of spells and unsettling magic. What would their response be to this news? Whether using dragons, firefish or sword-wielding soccer moms, writers in the emerging category... Read more
So, this morning Anne and I have escaped our neighborhood to hide out at a coffee shop on the north side of Seattle. I’m planning to make a lot of progress on the sequel to Auralia’s Colors (which is now due Wednesday), and we have got to avoid distraction. So, we’ve chosen a quiet, beautiful, peaceful courtyard lined with Christmas lights, decorated with a fountain and bamboo, and Celtic music is playing. A great place for a sleepy Saturday morning.... Read more
Here’s the trailer for The Dark is Rising. I’ve met a lot of fans of Susan Cooper’s novels. My wife Anne, for one. I have a feeling the fans will pull out their hair when they see this. And no, I don’t mean in fits of excitement. I mean, really, doesn’t this just look like a collage of tired fantasy cliches? “Even the smallest light shines in the darkness.” Here’s an article from back in May about just how far... Read more
Here’s Doug Cummings’ new Masters of Cinema essay on Masahiro Shinoda’s film Silence, which is based on Shusaku Endo’s extraordinary novel. As you probably know, Martin Scorsese’s next film is his own adaptation of the same source material. I urge you to read the novel before you see the film’s. It’s unforgettable. Here’s J. Robert Parks on Rescue Dawn: (http://framingdevice.org/?p=239). ¬†And oh, here’s Nate Bell on the same film. And finally, via Mark Shea, a YouTube clip of Peter Sellers... Read more
Latest letters at CT Movies: Tonight I took my two teenagers and a couple of their friends to see Evan Almighty. I am going to recommend this movie to everyone I know! We laughed until we cried, and I was so absolutely touched by the accurate re-telling of this Noah’s Ark story‚ so relevant for today, I almost cried during the movie. This is exactly how Noah’s wife and his kids must have felt. This movie was so perfect‚ the... Read more
You gotta admit, it’s great to see him in that costume again. Read more
Wow. Stereogum has posted a free mp3 album celebrating … and reinventing… Radiohead’s best album (in my humble opinion), OK Computer. Even better? It features artists like David Bazan’s Black Cloud, My Brightest Diamond, and Cold War Kids. I’m going to check this out. (more…) Read more
Superman: Man of Steel is the working title of Brian Singer’s sequel to last year’s Superman Returns. And the Variety news story addressing this reveals… … that Kevin Spacey never used the word “retirement.” So, that means the story I linked a while back, which quoted him as saying, “I don’t care about my personal acting career any more. I’m done with it…” was erroneous. My apologies, but it seemed legit to me. Anyway, speaking of sequels, I need to get... Read more
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