“The Death of Stalin” may well be the hardest you will ever laugh at mass murder. I know that sounds wrong, but go with me for a minute. By taking the death of the brutal autocrat and then crafting a timely political satire around it, filmmaker Armando Iannucci once again manages to create belly laughs […]
Film
Posted inCulture
PewPewPew
Robots vs. monsters means we all win
I‘m a simple man, but I take pleasure in some very specific cinematic delights. I love giant, Godzilla-esque kaiju monsters. I also love several-hundred-feet-tall, mech-suited robots. So back when visionary director Guillermo del Toro announced he was making a movie about huge alien sea monsters entering our world through an inter-dimensional portal on the bottom […]
Posted inCulture
Unsane in the Membrane
Soderbergh once again blazes the trail
Steven Soderbergh is having one hell of a retirement. After announcing his intention to quit directing following “Magic Mike” and “Side Effects,” he directed, edited, produced and shot the insanely brilliant Cinemax show, “The Knick,” and HBO’s interactive puzzle series, “Mosaic.” He then instantly dove back into film with the Liberace biopic “Behind the Candelabra,” […]
Posted inCulture
Tomb with a View
Vikander saves the day
I don’t think I’ve ever had a video game spoil a movie for me. I’ve certainly read plenty of books that colored my enjoyment of their film adaptations, but video game movies are an entirely different beast. Terrible adaptations such as “Super Mario Brothers,” “Street Fighter” or “Assassin’s Creed” took just a few plot points from […]
Posted inCulture
Wild Horses
“Thoroughbreds” changes the rules of the race
Lily is a teenage girl who lives with her unnamed mother and stepfather, Mark, in his ornate and massive mansion. Lily hates Mark, who rapidly alternates between barely restrained hostility and cold disdain for her. He’s a fitness freak with a rowing machine upstairs in his bedroom, which sounds like a churning and anxious stomach, […]
Posted inCulture
A Bit of Magic
“A Wrinkle in Time” has its audience in mind
Earnestness is almost impossible in 2018. Any time a show tries genuine emotion like that, it’s very quickly undercut with either a winking moment of humor or a liberal dose of cynicism. Heart-on-the-sleeve gentleness doesn’t seem to work with modern audiences and can be misinterpreted as sugary cheese instead of kindhearted optimism. Mr. Rogers might […]
Posted inCulture
The Strangest Brews
Hopheads and the movies that love them
Living in Beer Town, USA has its ups and downs. The culture of people who genuinely care about craft brew and the artisanal nature of beer is a fun and inclusive group, but the drunken shenanigans in downtown Bend on a Saturday night can be a little exhausting. I’ve hosed down enough vomit in Tin […]
Posted inCulture
Bang Bang
Death Wish revels in its own toxic masculinity. Let this be the last time you think of this film
I would call “Death Wish” insensitive, but that would be an insult to people born without senses. Instead, “Death Wish” is more of a thoughtless fart in a car full of idiots; eyes twitching, nose burning, you taste something foul, but no one’s confessing to the stench. Now all you have is a directionless rage, […]
Posted inCulture
Hail to the King
“Black Panther” throws up the fist
I can understand the argument that there are too many superhero movies. At around a dozen a year, comic book movies are as ubiquitous to modern cinema as westerns were to the 1940s. Some are garbage (“Batman v. Superman” and “Suicide Squad” come to mind), but every year we get at least one new classic such […]
Posted inCulture
90th Academy Award Predictions
2017 was an incredible year in film
I‘m not a betting man, but if I were, the Oscars are the only thing I’d feel comfortable making predictions about. There are always the things that should win because they’re heads and shoulders above the rest of the nominees, but they’re usually defeated by the things that will win either because of popularity or […]
