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The Fulsome Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson’s trajectory into animated features is anything if not logical. It’s fitting that his first foray into animation would also see his first explicit invocation of “existentialism” (to my recollection). “What’s it mean to be a fox, or to be an opossum?” George Clooney plaintively asks in the first 15 minutes of his film. [...]
Also posted in criticism Tagged animation, bill murray, fantastic mr. fox, film, george clooney, review, wes anderson Leave a comment
taken in woodstock
I went to see Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock (2009) with my parents tonight. More out of obligation to my uncle, who is credited as “music supervisor” than any inherent desire to see this film. That said, it’s hard to understand the appeal of such a film outside of my parents demographic group (the baby boom), [...]
Also posted in criticism Tagged 60s, ang lee, demitri martin, film, music, taking woodstock, woodstock Leave a comment
on David Fincher
I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night. David Fincher’s 2008 Best Picture-nominated biopic of the fictional Fitzgerald character leaves a lasting impression, as do most of his other films. Fincher, for all his failings as a mainstream director who attempted to bring the art house to the masses, does seem to be [...]
Also posted in criticism Tagged benjamin button, brad pitt, cate blanchett, david fincher, film, lincoln center, movies Leave a comment
transformers: revenge of the fallen
Francis Bacon declared that the Egyptian pyramids were the highest achievement of Western art. He was right: no other work of art so successfully conveys a culture’s obsession with death, its desire to be known throughout history. The pyramids evoke man’s epic battle against entropy: against waste, old age and eventual obscurity.
Michael Bay’s Transformers: [...]
Also posted in criticism Tagged megan fox, michael bay, movies, revenge of the fallen, shia labouef, transformers Leave a comment
do the poor love their tweets?
…”These worries started to surface for me last month, when Bruce Sterling, the cyberpunk writer, proposed at the South by Southwest tech conference in Austin that the clearest symbol of poverty is dependence on “connections” like the Internet, Skype and texting. “Poor folk love their cellphones!” he said.” (source)
It seems intuitively true that the distinguishing [...]
vbs.tv: Pakistani Arms Markets
VBS, tongue in cheek, has a series of “guides to travel”, video newsreels of unpleasant regions around the world. They don’t have any pretensions to unbiased coverage, and as such they get better access and more entertaining footage than the typical outlets. VBS’s typical video definitely affords a glimpse of where journalism is going in [...]
review: dogville
Take any European and ask them what’s wrong with America. Our chauvenism, our bigotry, our sexual proclivities, our depravities, all are up for display in Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003). Why watch the film, then? It’s an interesting question which I have no answer to. But the film is strong, the acting talent deep. However [...]
Review: Sin Nombre
Sin Nombre is a frenetic drama about the teeming and ignored life of migrants in central America and the ultraviolent gangs to which this life is inextricably linked. I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the film this afternoon, with a Q&A afterwards with the director, Cary Joji Fukunaga and the CEO of [...]
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on the banality of analysis
Can a lie start a war? Did the now-infamous “16 words” in President Bush’s 2003 “State of the Union” address amount to a cassus belli for American aggression? This seems like a non-start for most people, because they disagree not so much on whether Bush’s words started the war but whether they were indeed lies. [...]
The Wings of Desire (1987)