Glamour Girl
Flying into New York on a clear night, descending over Manhattan, the view’s amazing. Tucked in between the Hudson and East Rivers sits a compact, imperfect island. Looking out the window, my eye is...
View ArticleOrtega & Mr. Miller
When Miller’s Girl was announced a few months ago, it instantly raised the ire of the Age Gap Cops. After all, its plot details sexual tension between a teacher (Martin Freeman, 52) and his student...
View ArticleMonica and the Couch
I was minding my own beeswax on Wednesday when Nicky came home all upset. Was it all that cranberry juice? I DON’T THINK SO! But he was mad and a little sad about something, so I ignored him for as...
View ArticleCrooked Whites
How far would a patient go to have perfect teeth? Put another way, how far would an orthodontist go to give his patients a perfect set of teeth? A new Netflix documentary, Open Wide, explores the work...
View ArticleAll the Right Moves
What was Tom Cruise up to before Risky Business? In 1986, he told Roger Ebert, “My first movie was a hell of an experience… I got one day's work on Endless Love, and the director was always grabbing my...
View ArticleArgylle's Gaudy Affair
The new action movie Argylle employs a novel-within-the-movie structure in which heroine Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) authors a popular series of spy novels, featuring Argylle (Henry Cavill), his...
View ArticleThe Assembly Cut
MRAAAAHHHH!!! I am become beast, slayer of RATS. Chickens can act much as cats if given the chance—an aphorism of mine from another lifetime, one I might’ve sold in a wastebasket on Lexington Ave....
View ArticleThe Obamas Strike Out
Having enjoyed the documentary, AmericanFactory—the first film from Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground Productions—I didn't hesitate to watch their latest cinematic offering on Netflix. Leave...
View ArticleCherry 2017
In 2017, everyone will embrace eye-popping colors, plastic windbreakers, and some of the same technology we’ve ended up with. In our world, carburetors run alongside hybrids and Teslas; pedestrians...
View ArticleFear and Loathing in 2024
Google the words “wave speech” and you’ll get the full thing, via Goodreads, excerpted from Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: “Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas....
View ArticlePink Slash
Fifteen years ago, Diablo Cody, fresh off her Oscar for writing Juno, authored the screenplay for Jennifer’s Body, a teen horror comedy with Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox. A flop at the time,...
View ArticleRoger Corman, For Example
In 1963, after producing and directing five films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Roger Corman wanted to do something different. His next movie was an adaptation of a tale by a different horror...
View ArticleHen Coverage
Rrrrrrrr... grrrrrr… mumble mumble mumble... I’m feeling sleepy…The sequence at claw is a pair of two young women traipsing around Lower Manhattan. They begin in Duane Park and continue over to West...
View ArticleRed Death of the New World
After the success of Roger Corman’s film adaptation of “The Fall of the House of Usher” in 1960, he was given the chance to direct another Poe story. He felt “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque...
View ArticleMinority Report and the Work of the Devil
Around a year ago I was working on an extensive project parsing through the ways Philip K. Dick’s literature is almost completely misinterpreted in all but a handful of adaptations. It started with the...
View ArticleBrad Pitt's First Splits
In 1995, Gene Siskel asked Brad Pitt if he always knew he would become famous. “Yes, there was that feeling as a kid that something… something bigger—again, you’re being prepared for something big, but...
View ArticleBubble Emulsion
Some people insist they only watch movies once, even good ones, and mention that they can't understand why anyone would do otherwise. This undermines a film fan's entire belief system. It's like saying...
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