It is impossible to understate the primary role water has played in shaping world history, whether it is Lewis and Clark crisscrossing the western U.S. by river, or recognizing how cities and towns have been settled by gathering around rivers, lakes and other water sources. Perhaps the most violent expression of the centrality of water […]
Film
Posted inCulture
Class IV Horror Films
Don’t Say Hollywood Didn’t Warn You
In last fall’s beautiful Life of Pi, the main character is stranded on a raft with a cranky tiger. The story, adapted faithfully from the fantastically written novel of the same name, asks many questions about religion and kindness—but, really, the nagging question for Hollywood is: Why must every movie with a raft or canoe […]
Posted inCulture
Medicine Show
42 turns the Jackie Robinson storyinto a string of feel-good homilies
At a pivotal moment in the new Jackie Robinson biopic 42, Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) tries to console Robinson (Chadwick Boseman), who’s furious over the abuse and humiliation he’s required to endure stoically as the first black player in major-league baseball. “You’re medicine, Jack,” Rickey solemnly intones, trying to impress upon the […]
Posted inCulture
The Muse of John Hughes
A retrospective on the Hughes-Ringwald collaborations
Most actresses search for the role of a lifetime for their entire career; it doesn’t often plop itself in their lap three times in three years. This was the case for Molly Ringwald when John Hughes cast her in the a trifecta of memorable teen films, Sixteen Candles, 1984, Breakfast Club, 1985, and Pretty in […]
Posted inCulture
Wheels Keep Spinning
On the Road Takes the High Road
Over the decades, if not instantly after the book’s publication, "On The Road" has been lionized as a canon of wild life; it is, after all, the lightning rod for the Beat Generation, pulling together an emerging bebop jazz scene, reckless youth and casual sexual encounters. The driving force of that story is a tale […]
Posted inCulture
Evil Dead Remake is Gory
But nothing cult-worthy here
In 1981, Evil Dead was released and capped a golden era of gore films, which had started eight years earlier with the release of Exorcist. It may be difficult to believe now—after those original films have been obscured by their ridiculous sequels—but The Exorcist was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 1973, including Best Picture, […]
Posted inCulture
Forget the Sequels and Go to the Source
With the disappointing remake of Evil Dead, stay home, roll back the clock to the Golden Era of horror films, forget that these films spawned any sequels and stream one of the originals. It is easy to forget that The Exorcist (1973) isn’t actually just about heads twisting 360 degrees and vomit splatter, but actually […]
Posted inCulture
Sound City
Sound City Roswell Films In a scene late in the newly released documentary Sound City, Dave Grohl, the former drummer for Nirvana, is focused. He pounds away on the drums, lost in their echoing tribal rhythm, his long black hair flying in his face. It’s almost as if he thinks finding the right combo of […]
Posted inCulture
Big Mechanical Lizards
Old-school effects helped Jurassic Park‘s state-of-the-art seem real
In June 1993, I stood in line at a Northern California multiplex with my then-roommates, awaiting our showtime for Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. One of them in particular had been giddy for weeks leading up to the opening, and to him the reason for such anticipation was self-evident. “Big mechanical lizards!” he would intone with […]
Posted inCulture
Party All the Time
Spring Breakers assaults the quest for eternal vacation from reality
Provocateur: It’s such a loaded, even lazy term. Sure, it might seem to apply to Spring Breakers writer/director Harmony Korine as much as it would to any filmmaker. After all, he is the guy whose career launched as a teenager with the script for Larry Clark’s incendiary teens-in-trouble opus Kids, and whose output has included […]
