Help! I’m stuck in a bad Kevin Smith movie! Image via Bloody Disgusting
Oh Kevin Smith, why hath thou foresaken us?
Tusk, the latest Kevin Smith joint, has received a lot of hype both for its weird premise and the weird way in which the story was first conceived. Like the scientific experiment seen onscreen, Tusk is equal parts bizarre and inexplicable. But most of all, it never justifies its reason for existence.
“Hey Kristen…do you think the seat between us is symbolism for the distance in our relationship.” “Sure Bill.” Image via IFC
For a film starring a guy known for his Alan Alda impression and a girl known for her awkward stammering, The Skeleton Twins sure is sad. In fact, the biggest laugh you will get out of The Skeleton Twins is from a joke about a famous dead dog.
The Skeleton Twins checks off a myraid of indie movie cliches, from white people being sad underwater, to white people being sad while sticking their head out of a car window. A good alternate title for this film would be Little Miss Zoloft.
Here we are again, in another rough and tumble neighborhood where everybody steals from each other, and nobody ever gets out. We have heard this story before and it can basically take place anywhere because, well, America is filled with a lot of crappy places.
The Drop is a slick and entertaining, yet typical, crime thriller. Boston writer Dennis Lehane takes his talents to the streets of Brooklyn. Bob (Tom Hardy) works at a bar that criminals from all walks of life use as a “drop bar.” This is a place where money constantly changes hands. Or that is what I think. There’s a lot of accents in play here.
Well would you look at that: an indie film about the creative mind that doesn’t come from such a dark place.
Frank opens as Jon Burroughs (Domhnall Gleeson) walks down the beach of his quaint British hometown and constructs lyrics in his head based on everything he sees. Most of the stuff he comes up with is terrible. Then again, when you try and create stuff, a majority of the stuff that you come up with is going to be crap.
It seems weird to say that “Joan Rivers is dead” because she has been around for as long as anybody can remember. She always acted like nothing could bring her down, even though nobody was as aware of their own mortality as she was.
Joan Rivers passed away earlier today. She was 81.
Any film or TV show that presents a completely normal family is lying to you. If the family was normal, then it wouldn’t be a real family.
Dysfunctional families are a perfect storytelling device which lend themselves to virtually any genre, whether it be comedy, drama, or horror. I just started watching Parenthood, in which a sprawling mess of a family is the center of the story. It is a great show, and it got me thinking about my favorite dysfunctional families. Dysfunctional families can be disastrous. However, often that is just because their love is so strong that it compels them to do crazy things.
I did some digging, and I compiled a list. Here are ten of the best dysfunctional families in pop culture:
Every time one season ends and a new season begins, there is a tendency to compile a list of which upcoming films will probably be the best. This is fun to do, but the biggest flaw in doing so is that, in the end, it is tough to write about films that you have not seen.
In response to this, I decided to devise a more fun way to talk about what is coming out in the months ahead. Everybody knows that nobody comes up with more creative, albeit wrong, titles for movies than your grandparents. I did it in the winter, and I did it in the fall, and now I am going to try it out again. If I decided to take a trip down to Florida and survey everybody who was playing a game of shuffleboard, this is what they would say are the biggest movies coming out this fall:
Warning: This post contains spoilers for the series finale of The Sopranos. That is, if it hasn’t already been spoiled for you in the past 48 hours.
Yesterday, Martha P. Nochimson wrote a fantastic piece for Vox about Sopranos showrunner David Chase. If there is an award for articles on the Internet, I believe this article should receive it. It has a few brilliant interactive moments (mainly with its own cut to black), but most importantly, it cuts to the core of this great artist. It digs deep into his thoughts on art, and grazes his own mortality.
Unfortunately, you might not have known that from the headline “Did Tony die at the end of The Sopranos?” as well as the ensuing media coverage which focuses solely on Chase’s one sentence response. After countless think pieces, angry tweets, and a response from Chase’s publicist, it is safe to say that what should have been a harmless article caused a firestorm. It caused a dormant volcano to erupt. The Sopranos ended in 2006, and nobody has gotten over it since.
Nowadays, the pervasive narrative is that film is dead and television is better. This statement is only half true. While television is better than ever before, cinema isn’t doing too badly, either.
Most of my film experiences this summer were nothing but pleasant. Besides anything Michael Bay had his name on, there were very few complaints to be had about the intelligence of Hollywood blockbusters (in retrospect, I even enjoyed Winter Solider). In the art house world, some directors were doing things with the form that nobody has done before. Well, that happened in the blockbuster world as well.
Film is in a transitional period. This was the summer of On Demand, where a lot of films were available on your TV set the same day they were playing in select theaters. While I still prefer a trip to the theater any chance I get, it was nice to have access to the sort of films that usually don’t expand nationwide. It is too bad this wasn’t around when I was a high schooler yearning for my hometown to be a hip, indie place.
Here are my top six films of summer 2014. I choose six because math is irrelevant to me:
Pictured: Dr. Tim Whatley and Elaine Benes
Well, the Emmy Awards happened again tonight.
My thoughts are about as predictable as most of the winners. In a year of excellent new shows, the common theme was to tread the same ground. However, that is not saying that some of those winners were not deserved.
Overall, with a great host and some memorable moments, the Emmys reminded me why TV is so great right now, and why film needs to catch up. However, many of the winners last night did not reflect the greatness of television right now. Hold the phone, you’re telling me that an award show is out of touch with what is popular and innovative right now? I don’t believe it.
Without further adieu, here are the highlights and lowlights of last night’s ceremony: