All That Jas
Aug19

All That Jas

In Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois is an alcoholic, a woman of privilege who’s fallen from grace and refuses to let go of her former lifestyle, who has to shift down a class and as a result has a nervous breakdown. She staves off the nervous breakdown for a spell by staying with her much-lower-down-on-the-economic-food-chain sister Stella, who is married to the thuggish, animalistic (but at least real, and...

Read More
Elysium Movie Review
Aug19

Elysium Movie Review

Score: 3/10 (Wish I could get my money back) Elysium is a complete dud and disappointment. After watching the trailers all summer, I had high hopes that the movie would be good. The film is directed by Neill Blomkamp. I am a big fan of his previous film, District 9. Unfortunately, the two movies are not even in the same league. At the end of the 21st century, the Earth is overpopulated and polluted. As such, the wealthy conceive an...

Read More
Retrospective Review: (100) Minutes of Dishonesty
Aug16

Retrospective Review: (100) Minutes of Dishonesty

I can get around the basic complaints that my good-taste friends have of Summer. I can get around, for instance, its annoying too-hip-ness, with its Regina-Spektor-Wolfmother-Smiths-She-and-Him soundtrack, its casting of Zooey Deschanel as the titular Summer, and its parentheses around the number “500” in the title (why?). I’m not a very aesthetic filmgoer anyway, and as long as the story interests me, I can overlook whatever costume...

Read More
#tbt: Five Lessons Grosse Pointe Blank Will Teach You About Attending Your Ten Year Reunion
Aug15

#tbt: Five Lessons Grosse Pointe Blank Will Teach You About Attending Your Ten Year Reunion

Tony Soprano was a professional killer, but he was also just a man with anxiety issues, and who dealt with said issues by visiting weekly with a therapist. Since Tony was a mobster first and a person second, the therapy sessions on The Sopranos were just a device—what we really wanted was to see the inner-workings of a killer, so having him, say, write in a diary would have been just as effective. Conversely, Martin Blank is a man...

Read More
Anatomy of an Oscar Campaign: Lee Daniel’s The Butler
Aug15

Anatomy of an Oscar Campaign: Lee Daniel’s The Butler

The Oscars are the Super Bowl of films.  300 films are released in the U.S. on average each year, and about a third of those films have a shot at some kind of award (Peoples Choice, Kid’s Choice, MTV Movie, Golden Globe). However, only the best and the brightest (not counting Crash ’06) have a shot at Best Picture at the Oscars.  Most people think that to win an Oscar you just make the best movie, but that could not be...

Read More
The Spectacular Now and the Invincibility of Youth
Aug13

The Spectacular Now and the Invincibility of Youth

When I first saw the trailer for The Spectacular Now, part of me was excited, and the other part annoyed.  As soon as I saw that it was from the writers of 500 Days of Summer, I was annoyed it would be the next great  ”this is how I identify with emotions” movie for 20 year olds.  It had attractive leads with problems, who were young, whilst catchy songs played in the background.  The only way to know for sure of course,...

Read More