BULLET TRAIN: GOING NOWHERE FAST
If you’ve seen Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, or Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, you’ll recognize David Leitch’s style of filmmaking. He focuses on hyperkinetic action and flamboyant violence with a heaping dose of smartass humor—a flashy showcase that…
NEW AND NOTABLE FILM BOOKS JULY 2022 – PART TWO
THE FAMOUS MR. FAIRBANKS: A STORY OF CELEBRITY by Richard Schickel (Felix Farmer Press) I was happy to reacquaint myself with this book, a lengthy essay about the nature of celebrity based on the first man who embodied its…
NEW AND NOTABLE FILM BOOKS JULY 2022 – Part One
INK-STAINED HOLLYWOOD: THE TRIUMPH OF CINEMA’S TRADE PRESS by Eric Hoyt (University of California Press) This vital new book is the result of Herculean research by the man who now supervises the Media History Digital Library, where one can…
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
It’s easy to see why Dalia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing became a best-seller. It has all the ingredients to attract a wide audience: an underdog heroine with an abusive father lives in a marsh in South Carolina that makes her a…
MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS
Is there still an audience for an adaptation of Paul Gallico’s whimsical best-selling novel Mrs. ‘arris goes to Paris? And are they so dumb that they need to have her name spelled out instead of Cockney-ized? Whatever the case, I…
THOR: LOVE, THUNDER AND SHTICK
I have no patience for superhero movies without a sense of humor. If executed properly (see the original Avengers) the comedy should arise naturally from the situations in the script and the characters’ reactions to them. That’s why I was…
MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON
How can a film as disarmingly simple as this inspire deep feelings about loss, connection, and the meaning of family? I’m not sure I have the answer; all I know is that I was fighting back tears at the…
