Film/TV

669 results
Page 48
Pitt in 'World War Z': Crisis of originality.

Brad Pitt's apocalypse: "World War Z'

Hands off my zombies, Brad!

The movie version of World War Z glosses over the zombies that made the book interesting and replaces them with derivative action sequences. It was almost painful to watch the bastardization of a genre so near and dear to my heart.
Lance Manion

Lance Manion

Articles 4 minute read
Are these hippies the good guys or the villains?

Zal Batmanglij's "The East'

Those evil corporations again

Evil corporations get their comeuppance in The East, but Zal Batmanglij's mess of a film is almost a primer in how not to do political paranoia. Next reel, please.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 4 minute read
Brandon, what are you doing in bed with Anne Bancroft?

My son as "The Graduate'

Where have you gone, Dustin Hoffman? Or: In my house, it's 1967 all over again

If you think life doesn't imitate art, visit my home, where things have taken a strange turn now that my son Brandon has graduated from high school.
Perry Block

Perry Block

Articles 3 minute read
Gerwig (right), Mickey Sumner: An invisible world of love, freedom and creativity.

Noah Baumbach's "Frances Ha'

To be young, rootless and struggling— but oh, the possibilities!

In Noah Baumbach's latest film, 27-year-old Frances is caught somewhere between who she is and whom she wants to be— a world not yet defined and unexpectedly magical.

Maxine Krenzel

Articles 3 minute read
His tragedies outweighed his infidelity.

"The Doctor': Julius Erving, beyond the hype

Flying a little too high

Julius Erving was once a great basketball player, role model and family man. In retrospect, he benefitted from the contrast between his relatively clean self and the coke-snorting brothers who were despoiling professional basketball's image before he came along.

Robert Liss

Articles 4 minute read
What are all those foreigners doing in this typical American town?

Ten questions about 'Man of Steel'

Maybe they should call it Brains of Steel

You don't need Superman's X-ray vision to spot the logical holes in his latest film.
Alaina Johns

Alaina Johns

Articles 3 minute read

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What I learned from "Rocky Horror'

A would-be faggot comes of age: How Rocky Horror changed my life

I wasn't gay in high school, but I was a freak— and The Rocky Horror Picture Show endowed my circle of freaks with a transcendent sense of our value. Or was it the other way around?
Lance Manion

Lance Manion

Articles 5 minute read
Milligan (left), DiCaprio: Calling Orson Welles.

Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby'

The book was so much better

Why do film directors seem intent on trashing great literature? Baz Luhrmann's glitzy, elaborate version of The Great Gatsby is all self-important spectacle, and, like Joe Wright's recent Anna Karenina, a travesty of the original.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 5 minute read
Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man: Parrot-loving Russians, beware.

Learning to love "The Avengers'

What I did for love

The mindless “Avengers” films and their various comic-book spinoffs have already wasted hours of my life at a cost of hundreds of dollars, and there's no end in sight. On the other hand, they may have saved my marriage.
Alaina Johns

Alaina Johns

Articles 6 minute read
Still talking, writing, and even defending white cops.

Mumia again: Stephen Vittoria's 'Long Distance Revolutionary'

The elephant in the room

Is Mumia Abu-Jamal a cop-killer rightly locked up for life, or a political prisoner whose conviction embodied a racist era in Philadelphia the city will never get past until he is set free? This new documentary argues strongly for the latter viewpoint but passes too quickly over the central question: Was Mumia guilty or innocent?
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 6 minute read