Category: Movies & TV
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City of God
City of God (Cidade de Deus), directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, adapted Bráulio Mantovani from the novel by Paulo Lins, is easily one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time, if not ever. Buscapé, ’Rocket’, the fragile and vibrant thread that runs furtively through this stunning and frenetic film. I…
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Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy
Alisa and I caught Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy this weekend. I really like it. You could like it to, as long as you do one thing (no, it’s not “Don’t panic.”): don’t take it seriously at all. If you can do this, then the movie should be an utterly zany and very funny experience.…
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Frank Miller’s Sin City
As many of you know, Frank Miller’s incredible comic Sin City was recently released as a feature-length mainstream film. Alisa and I saw it on opening night, and my review is the same as most film critics’ reviews. I’ve been reading Sin City since about 1995 or so (when only the first three story arcs…
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Rating the Movies Since 1922, Part 1
There are many bastions of culture and critique where one can go to experience the arts and the measured critical examination of their fruits. One of these rich cultural havens is an institution that’s been viewing and reviewing virtually all of American cinema since 1922. That’s right, it’s the The Motion Picture Association of America…
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Hellbla— I Mean Constantine
Alisa and I saw Constantine last night. This was a particularly tricky movie for me, since I’ve been reading the comic John Constantine: Hellblazer since high school. The first trailer I saw for this flick made it look like revisionist Hollywood dreck. I was very disappointed. First off, Constantine is British and blonde. While these…
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The Prime Suggestion
I’ve watched probably somewhere between 30 and 40 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation since Christmas (we own seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, but I’ve seen far more than that since my childhood), and I’ve come to the conclusion that Picard and his people really don’t view the Prime Directive so much as…
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Blood: The Last Vampire
There are plenty of animated films with superb drawing, and plenty with stunning computer animation, but I haven’t seen many that blend them with the effortless success of Blood: The Last Vampire, which I bought today. The premise is well worn: there are vampires, we need to kill them. How do we do that? Well,…
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Never, Ever See Paycheck
John Woo’s Paycheck is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. Never see it. In every way you can think of it is bad. John Woo must have been drunk or dead the entire time. Philip K. Dick’s work is getting pissed on, and it’s excruciating to watch. That is all.
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Public Television is Good
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been watching great shows like Frontline: The War at the Pentagon, Nova‘s many offerings, a history of musical theatre, the story of Dr. Seuss, and the examination of Kerry and Bush (may have also been Frontline). Public television kicks ass. You should watch more of it. The signal-to-noise ratio…
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Anakin Skywalker, Artificial Jedi
I’m sitting in a StarbucksBose conjoined store and am facing a Philips 50″ plasma TV that’s looping a segment from Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. I remember Lucas’ new installments being criticized for their CGI work, which looked fake. I read an article talking about how they were optimized for some…
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