Conversation | Film

As always, Armond White has proven himself a master at stirring the pot.  I can’t wait to see the mini-backlash (if one gels) against Benjamin Kerstein’s hateful hatchet piece on Roger Ebert, the genesis of which was apparently White’s comments in his recent interview on the /Film podcast.  White has never been generous of spirit with his colleagues, and it is probably his biggest failing as a critic.  His disdain for Ebert in particular was explicated in an article a while back called “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Movies.” The populism of Ebert and Gene Siskel’s television program, as well as Ebert’s writing in particular, has long been a target of highbrow critics.  Nearly three decades ago, Ebert and Gene Siskel had a dustup with John Simon on Nightline over Return of the Jedi of all things.  Like Simon, Kerstein apparently favors an ugly, ad hominem approach in his own writing. Read the rest of this entry »

Was it worth the colonial gentry in the New World getting themselves into a shootin’ match with the great British Empire all so that eventually we could have this wonderful dance routine to commemorate it?  It’s a point worth considering, anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

I just finished watching a film by Hiroshi Teshigahara called Rikyu.  I liked it a great deal.  It’s about the last years of a tea master in late 16th c. Japan and how he came into conflict with the warlord that had held him in favor.   Read the rest of this entry »

Cinema seems to have its own operant Logos — or is Providence a better term?  I watched Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror (Zerkalo) for the first time on day this week, and the next day I happened to watch Aleksandr Sokurov’s Mother and Son (Mat i syn).  This happened purely by chance. Read the rest of this entry »

The whole dustup over Comedy Central’s decision not to air the South Park episode where Mohammed has provoked such predictable responses that I’m surprised that I can react with incredulity.  This is not a new debate, but the fact that bodies may actually hit the floor over it keeps it fresh — as opposed to the vast majority of free speech cases.  See, on the one hand, you have Jon Stewart, who delivered a rather solid smackdown of the NY-based group, Revolution Muslim on The Daily Show, for essentially being able to threaten the lives of Trey Parker and Matt Stone under the protection of the First Amendment.  Stewart was right to attack them, and to tell them, “Go fuck yourself” in the most ecstatic terms, but he also wobbled horribly when he shrugged off Comedy Central’s decision as their right.  (Because they write the checks and whatnot.)  Technically, yes, they have the right.  But were they right? Read the rest of this entry »

"A Girl. A Machine Gun. A Revenge." What more do you need to know?

At the moment, it feels like there’s an elephant sitting on my chest. This morning I started watching The Machine Girl, and by this afternoon I was convinced there’s something wrong with me. Read the rest of this entry »

Ignore, for the moment, that she’s 11.  Kids-as-killers is nothing new, especially if you’ve heard of films like Village of the Damned, Haneke’s recent The White Ribbon, Battle Royale, The Bad Seed, or any number of examples of Japanese animation.  A few years ago, I had the misfortune of watching a film called The Machine Girl, which was one of the goriest, most devoid-of-redeeming-value movie experiences I’ve ever had.  Sure, it’s more common for teenagers to be agents of destruction than pre-teens, but not unheard-of, especially among the critical establishment whose job is to be more familiar with these things than the rest of us amateurs.  While it’s worthwhile to debate whether or not it’s wrong to revel in the spectacle of a little girl dishing out gloriously exaggerated ultraviolence (which, in comparison to The Machine Girl, is the stuff of candy-colored Disney entertainment), the real reason that Hit Girl fails as a 21st century action heroine is far more basic. Read the rest of this entry »

Steve is almost to the finishing line on his epic, part-by-part rundown of Kill Bill, Isabelle M. registers enthusiastic surprise at liking Dreamworks Animation’s latest offering, How to Train Your Dragon, and Adam Woerlein delivers a hilariously droll takedown of the Jeff Bridges vehicle, Crazy Heart.

I think that Big Hollywood is actually kind of cool in concept: the idea is to bring together a bunch of critics, artists, and journalists who are interested in film culture commentary from a conservative perspective.  It should be taken for granted that the vast majority of the major film criticism in the U.S. is dominated by critics whose political perspective is left-of-center.  It should also go without saying that being left-of-center isn’t a bad thing in the least (according to those Internet “Where Are You On the Political Axis?” tests, I’m left-of-center, which would probably surprise the hell out of my more liberal friends), but sometimes its a bit monotonous to read criticism by people who share a lot of the same basic premises.  There have been witty, intellectually vigorous conservative writers in the past; unfortunately, these days, most of them seem to tend to gravitate toward stock market advice columns or more direct political editorializing. Read the rest of this entry »

I first saw this a few weeks ago, and at the time, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was so absurdly funny about it.  Not LOL funny; just laughable.  The first thing might be the overwhelming response from anti-theists,¹ who have slobbered adoration all over Pullman for his bravery in saying something very much like the things he’s been saying for years.  If this really is “all [he] has to say on that subject,” we can all breathe a sigh of relief, because his style of redundant bluntness (outside of his fiction) is not fresh, insightful, or persuasive.  My guess is that this isn’t really the last he has to say on the subject of the Christian religion, because very little else appears to interest him as a target for his vituperative broadsides. Read the rest of this entry »