HOUSE OF DYNAMITE
By sheer coincidence, I watched the 1964 movie Fail-Safe just a few weeks ago, and it’s extraordinary how closely it resembles Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite. I’m not talking about plagiarism. The 51-year-old film is very much of its time, along with Seven…
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
Do you find yourself absorbing the day’s latest news and feel like screaming? Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson found another solution: making One Battle After Another, a film so outrageous—yet so timely—that it seems to say, “Don’t scream…just laugh at the sheer…
THE LONG WALK
Does anyone out there remember They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? That 1969 film was based on a 1935 novel by Horace McCoy, inspired by the bizarre Depression-era craze of dance marathons. Slick entrepreneurs would hire out a ballroom or auditorium and…
CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD
I just watched CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD for the second time, as producer Kevin Feige and director Julius Onah came to my class at USC for a q&a following the screening… and you know what? I enjoyed it…
UNSTOPPABLE
Unstoppable is a mashup of an underdog sports movie and a domestic drama about a family terrorized by an abusive father. The worst thing I can say about it is that it is conventional, but since when is that a…
I’M STILL HERE: AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY
I admire Walter Salles’ work, and I’m especially fond of his acclaimed features Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries. He has returned to his Brazilian roots for another exceptional narrative, I’m Still Here…but he hastens to explain that it’s not the story, or…
THE LAST SHOWGIRL
The first feature film directed by Gia Coppola, Eleanor and Francis’s granddaughter, is a respectable but unmemorable vehicle for former Baywatch and Playboy pin-up Pamela Anderson. The script has been custom-tailored for her and she comes off well, but the film has only…
