Koba the Dread: Laughter and the 20 Million Martin Amis (Talk Miramax Books) It goes without saying–or it should–that we live in an age of celebrity. But in this age, one subset of the fame species has all but vanished from the cultural landscape: the literary celebrity. At the present moment, it could be argued […]
Sean Nelson
Posted inMovies & TV
Joyless Humor
The Scum of the Universe Return
Men In Black II dir. Sonnenfeld Opens Wed July 3 Various Theaters As you might expect, there are a handful of laughs in Men in Black II, the sequel that reunites Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as secret government agents protecting Earth from alien thugs. And as you might also expect, those laughs are […]
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Culture Wars
India Wrestles with the Modern Age
>Monsoon Wedding dir. Mira Nair Opens Fri March 8 Various Theaters The history of India is the history of colliding cultures–agrarian and industrial, male and female, national and imperial. Following its tenure as a subject of the British Empire, India’s progress into modernity has been fraught with all manner of fascinating entanglements–beginning, of course, with […]
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Sharing the Confinement
The Confusing, Sinister Beauty of Kandahar
Kandahar dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf Opens Fri Jan 18 Cinema 21 Kandahar has often been compared to the poetic, politically radical works of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Though the comparison stands, the image that opens the film is straight out of Fellini: a flock of disembodied prosthetic limbs, dangling from parachutes, floating down from the clouds to […]
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Ringing True
The Fellowship of The Royal Tenenbaums
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring dir. Peter Jackson Now playing Various The Royal Tenenbaums dir. Wes Anderson Opens Fri Dec 28 Various A lot of movies came out this year. But it’s difficult to imagine that 2001 was ever leading up to anything but the only two real event movies of […]
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Unlikely Familiar
Early Godard Finds Joy in Everyday Misery
Band of Outsiders dir. Jean-Luc Godard Opens Fri Dec 7 Cinema 21 There’s been a lot of reverent talk lately about Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s candy-coated carte postale to the splendor of Paris. Jeunet’s warm, sweet, uplifting film centers on a beautiful, defiantly eccentric bohemian girl who staves off existential sadness with escapades of imaginary espionage, […]
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All Is Full of Love
Magical Realism à la Francaise
Amélie dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet Opens Fri Nov 9 Fox Tower The world’s great cities carry automatic associations when portrayed on film. As Movie Venice is to dissolution and Movie New York is to crime, Movie Paris, of course, is to love. Although this is a reductive analysis, it’s nonetheless reflexive, and lies at the heart […]
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Olywood!
Oly Film Festival: Actually Worth the Drive up I-5
Olympia Film Festival Thurs Oct 11-Sun Oct 21 www.olywa.net/ofs or call (360) 754-6670 for schedule For a film festival to be good, it has to show good films. For a film festival to be big, it has to show a lot of films. But for a film festival to be romantic, it has to spring […]
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His Own Little Vietnam
An Interview with the Director of L.I.E.
L.I.E. dir. Michael Cuesta Opens Fri Oct 5 Fox Tower The best part about L.I.E., Michael Cuesta’s riveting new drama, is that I can’t really tell you very much about it. As a viewer, I generally prefer to know some plot details before going into a movie, so I can concentrate on the more interesting […]
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Digital Zero
Pearl Harbor Reviewed Sight Unseen
[Editor’s note: At press time, there had been no pre-screenings of Pearl Harbor, which is generally considered a bad sign in the crit racket. However, given the film’s ubiquitous trailer, and a passing knowledge of the works of director Michael Bay, it seemed that it wouldn’t be too hard to review the film without having […]
Posted inMusic
What the Man Said
All We Are Saying is Give Paul a Chance
Though the title might suggest otherwise, Wingspan, the new two-CD compendium of Paul McCartney’s 30-year career as a former Beatle, doesn’t quite count as the Wings anthology we’ve all been waiting for. As purists will undoubtedly note, nearly half of the 40 songs presented here were released on Paul’s early ’70s solo recordings before he […]
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Surely You Joust
Extreme Knight Movie is Historically Malnourished
Though I don’t think I ever saw a trailer or commercial for it, I knew that at some point during A Knight’s Tale there would be a scene of jousting set to the tune of Queen’s ubiquitous stadium anthem, “We Will Rock You.” That scene comes during the opening credits, and is, in its way, […]