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.
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
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
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
Episode 175 – MIDNIGHT IN PARIS / Brief Thoughts on THE HANGOVER 2, KUNG-FU PANDA 2 and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4
Episode 175 – Review of the brilliantly light and lovely MIDNIGHT IN PARIS; how THE HANGOVER 2 could have been saved and brief thoughts on KUNG-FU PANDA 2 and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4: ON STRANGER TIDES.
BRIDESMAIDS: Funny Girl
I’m shocked—shocked!—to find the big, dirty bone of contention with Paul Feig’s BRIDESMAIDS is the centerpiece gross-out scene, when whole mailing lists of people expecting a nice, polite feminist comedy were driven to conniptions
Episode 174 – THOR / BRIDESMAIDS
Episode 174 – Review of the “I’ve already forgotten if I’ve seen it” THOR and my film of the year BRIDESMAIDS. Enjoy!
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Insane, or: When the Communal Viewing Experience Goes Wrong
The Grove in Los Angeles is a lot of things to a lot of people. More precisely, it is meant to be everything to everybody. The sprawling, 575,000-square foot, open-air marketplace offers an alternative to Main Street, Costco, the Internet or any sort of reality existing beyond the confines of a price-tag. I mean no [...]
Episode 172 – This is the End and the Beginning / YOUR HIGHNESS / Why We Do The Film Talk
In what could be our last show Gareth and I discuss the new comedy YOUR HIGHNESS and ruminate on why film criticism matters as well as the reasons behind our desire to continue reviewing, investigating, mocking and praising cinema week after week.
Episode 168 – Nashville Film Festival / Ursula Lawrence – Writers Guild of America East / SUBMARINE
In today’s show Gareth and I talk with Writers Guild of America East Lead Strategic Organizer Ursula Lawrence, discuss the new coming of age laugher SUBMARINE, and touch lightly on THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, 13 ASSASSINS and UNCLE BOONME WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES as part of the 2011 Nashville Film Festival.
Episode 163 – BATTLE: LOS ANGELES / LIMITLESS / The iPhone Film Festival
Is BATTLE: LOS ANGELES the most important film of the year so far? Gareth and I think so and say why in this episode. Also discussed are the Bradley Cooper vehicle LIMITLESS and the new iPhone Film Festival.
INTOLERABLE CRUELTY & THE LADYKILLERS: Bush League Coens
Seven or eight years ago, about the time of our conflict with Saddam and the Iraqis, the Coen brothers made two films so bad they closed up shop to recharge. At least, that’s the story ‘round these parts.
ANOTHER YEAR: Seasonal Affective Disorder
While THE KING’S SPEECH loudly, laughably declared it has a voice this weekend, sweeping the guild awards and hoodwinking a lot of people who should know better into thinking it’s more than a shallow, concave, lumpy golddigger, ANOTHER YEAR quietly expanded, a genuinely humanist portrait of middle-aged British people discovering the therapeutic power of friendship, [...]
Episode 158 – THE GREEN HORNET / SEASON OF THE WITCH / FOUR LIONS
Gareth and I discover the DR. STRANGELOVE of our generation: Chris Morris’ FOUR LIONS. Also SEASON OF THE WITCH and THE GREEN HORNET are mentioned for some reason. Other items of interest: The Big Bear Horro-Fi Festival and 6 Months that Changed a Year.
Episode 156 – TRON: LEGACY / TRUE GRIT / The Films of 2010
Here it is – a review of that Apple Store you have to pay to get into, TRON: LEGACY, plus the laugh out loud tragedy of the year TRUE GRIT. All that and our thoughts on the Films of the Year.
DOGTOOTH: Adventures in home-schooling
The night after I got to see Yorgos Lanthimos’ bone-dry Greek family comedy DOGTOOTH at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, that same room saw the Houston Film Critics Society name THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO the best foreign language film of the year. In the year Houston hosted CARLOS, WHITE MATERIAL, MOTHER, A [...]
FOUR LIONS: Boom Goes the Dynamite
I admit I was a mite concerned by the concept of FOUR LIONS—a self-proclaimed “jihad comedy” about bumbling terrorists—though less for any faintworthy controversy than for the unshakable image of a Benny Hill type running around London trying and failing to blow things up, Wile E. Coyote-style. I should have known better. Chris Morris (aka [...]
Are DUE DATE and PLANES, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES the Same Film?
As many reviews will tell you, DUE DATE — the 2010 Downey Jr/Galifianakis feel-good buddy/road movie — is quite a lot like PLANES, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES — the 1987 Martin/Candy feel-good buddy/road movie. More than quite a lot. I can imagine DUE DATE’s director Todd Phillips pitching the idea: “It’s like PLAINS, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES, [...]
THE SOCIAL NETWORK: For Those Who Think Young
You practically need Asperger’s to cut through the irrelevant pop-ups loudly obscuring David Fincher’s The Social Network, the erstwhile Facebook film turned sight-restoring cinemessiah. It’s misogynistic, racist, and homophobic, sing the delirious quota choir. It’s deeper than Kane, better than Network, bigger than Jesus, shout the blurb-whores. That’s not what happened, spit the eternal point-missers. [...]
Late Early Godard: MASCULIN FEMININ, LA CHINOISE, & WEEK END
Has any canonized auteur been met with such furious confusion as Jean-Luc Godard? Even well-studied Godardians disagree on his meanings and periods and politics. Which means there’s no way I’m going to “get” everything on my first viewing, so anxiety-free I finally completed Godard’s New Wave output. I haven’t seen them all in order (Made [...]
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Talkin' 'bout my generation
I thought I was so over Michael Cera. My video game skills are only up to the early levels of Super Mario Bros, NES. And I have as much desire to watch hipsters fall in and out of “relationships” for a couple hours as I do to sit through Inception again and see if I’m [...]
TFT 139 – THE OTHER GUYS / The Perfect Cinema
TFT 139 running time: 49 minutes 11 seconds – 23.7mb mp3 THE OTHER GUYS starts at 1 minute 2 seconds The Perfect Cinema starts at 24 minutes 16 seconds – – – HELP JETT FIND WORK IN LA – CLICK HERE FOR HIS RESUME
TFT 138 – SALT / DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS – THE DINNER GAME – LE DîNER DE CONS
TFT 138 running time: 41 minutes 20 seconds – 19.9mb mp3 SALT starts at 1 minute 30 seconds DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS / THE DINNER GAME starts at 22 minutes 54 seconds – – – HELP JETT FIND WORK IN LA – CLICK HERE FOR HIS RESUME
TFT 132 – SPLICE / SEX AND THE CITY 2 / GET HIM TO THE GREEK
TFT 132 – SPLICE / SEX AND THE CITY 2 / GET HIM TO THE GREEK – – – TFT 132 running time: 57 minutes 07 seconds – 27.5mb mp3 SPLICE starts at 4 minutes 20 seconds SEX AND THE CITY 2 starts at 30 minutes 15 seconds GET HIM TO THE GREEK starts at [...]
