Ma Petite Ruine

The dominant mode of the crime novel in pre-war European fiction was much as it had been since the birth of the genre: the whodunit. Unreeling a mystery, clue by clue, until some heroic or slightly quirky detective could triumphantly announce the identity of the evildoer was the essential nature …

Man of Steel

Armando Iannucci makes deeply political comedies that are not actually at politics at all.  This is not the only good thing about his latest project, The Death of Stalin, such a remarkable thing, but it is perhaps what makes it a great film and it’s definitely what saves it from being …

Pay Back Africa

Tonight’s blog entry, which ought to be a relatively simple movie review, is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to write, which is in itself is illustrative of how thorny cultural criticism has become in late-stage capitalism.  The reasons for this are manifold and all worth exploring:  …

The Floating World

Stephen King adaptations, as my friend Scott Von Doviak can tell you, are a real mixed bag.  When you’re the best-selling author since Johnny Bible, though, everything you write is eventually going to find its way to the big screen, sometimes more than once.  The holiday season saw the release …

On Thin Ice

There have been a number of films lately — and are likely to be more, as I continue to get older and things I think of as happening in the not-too-distant past become ancient history — in which things are fictionally re-created that I remember as vivid memories.  Nothing really …

Please Baby Please

I’ve been defending the films of Spike Lee for a long, long, long time.  I’m old enough to remember having very deep thoughts (well, as deep as could be expected for a 16-year-old suburban white kid) about the first incarnation of She’s Gotta Have It, his very first full-length feature film, and being fascinated …