All about me.
It must be exciting, being Spike Lee. He started his career over 30 years ago, when you could count the number of prominent black filmmakers on one hand that had been mangled in a threshing mishap, and, in an era that was much more vocally racist than today, he frequently …
Thanksgiving posts may not be obligatory – believe me, I’d much rather be getting drunk and cooking, and I don’t think anyone in the world would care if I did – but giving thanks, especially if you’ve been as lucky as I am, is mandatory. So, as 2015 starts to …
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Jessica Jones, the new Netflix series based on the troubled but fascinating Marvel Comics heroine, isn’t noir. That word has gotten tossed around endlessly by just about every critic that’s written about it, but it’s so far from accurate that it’s not …
Well, that was unexpected, wasn’t it? Another major terrorist attack on a Western city was probably inevitable, but it was still shocking. The coordinated attacks on various locations in Paris on a busy weekend, by all indications planned and carried out by members of ISIS, left over a hundred innocent …
Let’s talk about Hitler for a little bit. No, no, not about going back in time and killing the baby version of him. We can all agree that this is nice clean fun, and in terms of using it to retroactively secure our national security, Jeb Bush (pardon me, Jeb! Bush) …
During the Paris Commune of 1871 — one of the first and still one of the greatest attempts by ordinary people to throw off the rule of priests, bosses, and money-men and take control of their own lives — a group of Communards, mostly workers and craftsmen, set off towards …
It is often said of films — documentaries in particular — that they are either timeless and universal, or that they capture a very specific time and place. Chris Marker’s first feature film, Le Joli Mai (co-directed with cameraman Pierre Lhomme), manages the neat trick of being both of those things. …
The film that Robert Bresson made in 1983, L’Argent, would be the last he would ever make. It is, if nothing else, a movie made by a director in full command of his intentions, a work of art created by someone who knew exactly what he wanted to do and would …
So, yesterday, we talked about problematic art, and how it can be dealt with in a productive and respectful way and not in a way that’s just griping that doesn’t accomplish anything. Hooray! I’m solving all the world’s problems! Now let’s talk about the concept of “allies”. Like “problematic”, this …
There is much talk these days of the embarrassment of riches to be found on television these days; TV is the new cinema, as we are told by an endless succession of thinkpieces by TV critics eager to defend the importance of their jobs. This both is and is not …
Last night, the Chicago Cubs were swept out of baseball’s post-season after being completely manhandled by the New York Mets, and today, they will prepare to do what they have done for the last 107 years: watch two other teams play in the World Series. I enjoyed watching the Cubs …
Chantal Akerman died two weeks ago. Her death was a shock to the film world, or at least that part of it that still considers cinema to be an art form and its geniuses worthy of commemoration; she was only 65 years old and in relatively good health, and she …
Peggy Guggenheim’s relationships with men were difficult, to put it mildly. As the new documentary Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict makes clear, the heiress and collector was far ahead of her time, both in recognizing the value of modern paintings and sculpture and in navigating the world of fine art — a world often …
Laurie Anderson has had a lot to deal with over the last few years. Since 2013, she was faced with, in rapid succession, the death of her mother Mary Louise, her husband Lou Reed, and her beloved dog, Lolabelle. Never one to let such matters overwhelm her, though, she dealt …
Just prior to beginning work on his first feature film, 1979’s Real Life, comedian Albert Brooks had been making short subjects for the show that would eventually become known as Saturday Night Live (or, as the bewildered Phoenix city councilman puts it when introducing Brooks in the film, “Good Night Saturday”). …
