Episode 186 – REAL STEEL / COYOTE REQUIEM: Jason Lehel, John Gordon and Nicole Herold / MONEYBALL
It’s the Occupy Wall Street Show as we review films that pit the little guy against the boss: REAL STEEL and MONEYBALL. Also we talk with director Jason Lehel, producer John Gordon and star Nicole Herold about their beautiful new film COYOTE REQUIEM as part of its exciting Kickstarter Campaign.
Episode 185 – CONTAGION / THE GUARD / TIFF 2011
Cough, cough. Eck. Cough, it’s CONTAGION folks and Gareth’s Film of the Year THE GUARD. All that plus Jett’s thoughts on the films of TIFF 2011 including THE BROOKLYN BROTHERS BEAT THE BEST, THE HUNTER and THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH and a brief mention of the new Criterion Jean Vigo Collection.
3 WOMEN / WARRIOR
In Which Olive Oyl and Carrie go Head to Head for the Sake of the Female Id, while an English lad and an Australian bloke re-enact the tortured soul of American masculinity, while Nick Nolte tries not to crumble, and Robert Altman smiles down from the heaven he didn’t believe in.
WARRIOR: Bodies in Motion
For a film about mixed martial arts, it would have been cool of Gavin O’Connor’s WARRIOR to demonstrate some mixed martial arts. But maybe I’m projecting my own priorities onto a film more interested in showing us, ad nauseam, how this great whatsit is provoking the audience.
Episode 184 – ATTACK THE BLOCK
Want to understand the recent Riots in England Dear Listener? Than you must must must start with Joe Cornish’s brilliant sci-fi kitchen-sink action dramedy ATTACK THE BLOCK.
APOLLO 18: The Truth is Out There
Gonzalo López-Gallego’s APOLLO 18 isn’t just a fun potboiler but an unlabeled conspiracy tape hiding in the wrong VHS sleeve, a straight-faced, paranoid political thriller spawned by the unholy union of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and Wikileaks.
COLOMBIANA Can’t Stop
As CONAN THE BARBARIAN represents the nadir of chaos cinema with its unfocused camerawork evoking nothing but a lazy director, Olivier Megaton’s COLOMBIANA represents its potential, finding purpose in the rapid cutting and manic energy that defines the End of Cinema.
THE HELP: Based on the Novel The Help by Uncle Remus
To call THE HELP caricature insults Aunt Jemima, but it’s difficult to define precisely how this grotesque sideshow operates without associating it with camp, melodrama, slapstick, Southern Gothic, and other broadly emotional modes
Episode 183 – RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES / WORLD ON A WIRE / THE KILLING
It’s almost too much action for one show Dear Listener: Gareth and I disagree more than a little bit on RISE OF THE PLAENT OF THE APES, cannot disagree for reasons that are obvious about Fassbinder’s WORLD ON A WIRE and explore a novel take on Stanley Kubrick’s THE KILLING.
Summer Festivals
Los Angeles is not known for its film festivals. There are no Golden Bears, Silver Lions or Palme D’ors awarded to obscure auteurs whose careers rise and fall on a handful of impossible-to-get-into screenings presided over by the cinematic elite. There are no A-List celebrities conducting full press Q&As.
Episode 182 – From the Member Archives: IRON MAN 2 / TALES FROM THE SCRIPT
It’s that hot and parched month of August Dear Listeners – and so we release a Treasure From the Archives, (let us not refer to it as a repeat), our thoughts on the action comic IRON MAN 2 and the horror of trying to make a living as a scriptwriter documentary TALES FROM THE SCRIPT.
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES: You say you want a revolution
I’ve never felt cognitive dissonance like reading my Twitter feed this week—but maybe that was all the cold medicine—seeing nonstop (and counterintuitive) raves for Rupert Wyatt’s blockbuster RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Contributor Crosstalk 2: Back in the Habit (April-June 2011)
BRANDON NOWALK: Hello, and welcome to Contributor Crosstalk 2: Back in the Habit, the quarterly look back at the good, the bad, and the weird cinema offered us below-the-liners. This episode: April-June, or Planet Hollywood’s journey from SOURCE CODE to CARS 2. Oof.
Episode 181: CAPTAIN AMERICA / THE ROCKETEER / BEGINNERS / COWBOYS AND ALIENS / Special Guest: Zaid Abu Hamdan director of Bahiya & Mahmoud
Episode 181 – Gareth and I watch COWBOYS AND ALIENS so you don’t have to.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER: That’s Entertainment
The only thing more tiresome than Marvel’s latest Shakespeare tragedy is the postmodern elevation of trash/pop/camp—a useful experiment, like shaving your head— so I won’t say Joe Johnston’s CAPTAIN AMERICA: WORLD-FRIENDLY SUBTITLE is a good film.
HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS 2: Childish Things
As half-films go, David Yates’ HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2, FILM 8: ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET VOLDEMORT lurches from scene to setpiece like it’s Daniel Radcliffe’s awkwardly effortful performance.
Episode 180 – HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 / PROJECT NIM / TABLOID / Special Guest: Jordan Bayne
Episode 180 – Incredibly we get Gareth to see another Harry Potter film – listen in for the thrilling result. No seriously, listen in. It is thrilling. Eight films worth of thrilling.
MEEK’S CUTOFF: State of the Union
“Is he ignorant, or is he just plain evil?” Michelle Williams’ pioneer asks of hapless guide Stephen Meek as their wagon train of three loosely tied families winds up lost in the wasteland with depleting resources and a native prisoner in Kelly Reichardt’s MEEK’S CUTOFF.
CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP: I’m Still Here
The great joke of the title CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP is that I was wondering the whole time when he was going to start. It takes fifteen minutes for Rodman Flender’s topical documentary to find a funny scene
Episode 179 – TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON / Final Cut Pro X / Special Guest: Terry George and THE SHORE at the Palm Springs Shortfest
Episode 179 – Gareth and I have slight disagreement over the amount of visual imagination in the Michael Bay film TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON.
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS: L’Age D’Or
Speaking of pseudointellectuals, I’ve never—not even at SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE—seen a movie with an audience more vigorously engaged in the signaling to everyone else that, yes, old sport, they got the reference, they’re very smart, they had THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL over for dinner the other night
The Other Guys – “Green Lantern” Review
Is it possible for a three hundred million dollar film to be an underdog? Consider the evidence:
