Film diary

To begin with, I have no small amount of reverence for Roger Corman. Untold hours of my youth were spent in front of a 13″ television that screened the most outrageous low-budget horror movies my local video store had to offer. Aside from the cheap thrills provided, there was something inspiring about their scrappy production values: a sense that limited resources and skills need not obstruct one’s dreams, and that a creative endeavor’s ostensible shortcomings… See more →

I’ve been following Mike Birbiglia’s work for a few years now, which means I’ve heard this story several times before. Sleepwalk With Me had its origins in his stand-up act, which morphed into a one-man show, which became a book, which has now been adapted into a film. It’s a good story deserving of all these media, but it is still best told onstage with a microphone.

Birbiglia is a gifted storyteller, heartfelt and free… See more →

Apropos of nothing, I’ve decided to watch all of Disney’s theatrical animated features in order of release date. Since Wreck-It Ralph’s release in November will bring the grand total up to fifty-two, it will take me exactly one year to watch them all if I do one film per week.

The marathon began tonight with 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a film of such tremendous historical significance that it’s almost impossible to… See more →

There’s a good story in here somewhere, but unfortunately this documentary about former Hole drummer Patty Schemel doesn’t seem to have much faith that it can reach very far outside Hole’s fan base. A lot of narrative polish it might have employed for the sake of the rest of us is eschewed in favor of making sure the fans get to hear about every last moment behind the scenes (and making damned sure everyone knows… See more →

Though he occasionally rises above it, Wes Anderson’s real great talent is in actively, counter-intuitively preventing an emotional connection between character and audience. I have never seen anyone work so hard to undermine his own ostensible goals. In spite of the delight his twee aesthetic elicits from his fan base, Anderson’s characters tend to be lifeless props populating meticulously constructed dioramas which were designed to be admired from the outside.

If being emotionally impenetrable truly… See more →

A little star-rating math:

Sergio Leone’s overall command of the medium has us beginning at four stars. Alas, his palpable misogyny throughout the film shaves off the fourth star. Toward the end, we lose most of the third star with the reveal of a plot twist that bears the odd distinction of being both predictable and thoroughly implausible. The remaining sliver of that third star is melted away by the bewildering prominence of Ennio Morricone’s… See more →

In the late 1980s, two recent college graduates in San Francisco began making audio recordings of their elderly neighbors’ loud, drunken arguments, eventually amassing over fourteen hours of material. If you find that material fails to transcend momentary amusement, the ensuing story will follow suit. As the recordings become a phenomenon throughout underground tape-trading networks and spawn albums, comic books, theatrical productions, and feature films, the cult obsession over such a mundane artifact grows ever… See more →

The Fly is iconic for its premise, but its execution leaves much to be desired. It tries to turn a typically feathery 1950s nuclear family idyll on its ear with a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, but ultimately only reinforces the status quo with a wholly undeserved happy ending. With the hero trapped unnoticed in plain sight, and the heroine taking the fall for his murder, the story is ready to end on a note… See more →