This is my last post on Blog Town, PDX. (Tear) I don’t want to get all weepy on you, so instead I’ll go out the easy way, by posting my favorite video of all time, ever. Hope this delivers you to your happy place; at least it will show you what mine looks like: Adieu, […]
Video
Posted inMovies & TV
Tonight: Werner Herzog on Conan O’Brien.
Werner Herzog–one of the best and weirdest directors around–is a guest on Late Night with Conan O’Brien tonight, along with Adam Sandler (whose contributions to cinema are nearly as valuable), and Jewel (who is, apparently, still alive). A habit formed in college, I still find myself watching Conan just about every night, usually tuning right […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Jellyfish
A Succinct Review for the Discerning Cinephile
There is not one single jellyfish in this entire movie. I checked twice to make sure. There are many scenes of downtown Tel Aviv and of the Israeli coastline, yes, but no jellyfish. I can only assume, then, that it must be a metaphor for something—something to do with floating around aimlessly in the ocean, […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Enjoying the Silence
Murderers Meditate in The Dhamma Brothers
Alabama’s Donaldson Correctional Facility houses some of Alabama’s most notorious hardcore criminals, many of whom have no hope of release before they die. The Dhamma Brothers is a documentary about what happened when an intensive 10-day silent meditation program was introduced to Donaldson’s inmates in 2002. The film explores tensions between well-meaning lefties who pushed […]
Posted inMovies & TV
A Tori Spelling Interview, Sort Of
Also, Kiss the Bride Is a Terrible Movie
Donna Martin—then a resident of the 90210 area of Beverly Hills—spent her teen years playing Tori Spelling, a supposed daughter of famous Hollywood producer Aaron Spelling. Ever since Martin moved away from 90210 in 2000, Martin has made a career out of being Tori Spelling—even going so far as to write a tell-all “autobiography” about […]
Posted inMovies & TV
A Legendary Killer
Charles Burnett’s Cinematic Resurrection
One of the inherent pitfalls of lost or forbidden phenomena—film or otherwise—is that it often develops a near-mythical status that’s impossible to live up to. Anticipation, rumor, and our yearning for the unattainable all conspire to elevate the “rarely seen” to the supposed level of “phenomenally mind-blowing,” making the ultimate consummation an inevitable disappointment. Few […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Love Songs
A Succinct Review for the Discerning Cinephile
I personally cannot imagine a better film synopsis than this one: Love Songs is a French musical about an ambisexual young couple and the hot girl they’ve invited to share their relationship. Julie (Ludivine Sagnier, AKA the foxy blonde girl from The Swimming Pool) and Ismaël (Louis Garrel, AKA the future father of my French […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Adbusting Graffiti
Bomb It Mixes Paint and Politics
A globetrotting documentary on graffiti, Bomb It features interviews with all sorts of internationally renowned artists, from Cornbread, who claims to have begun the tagging movement in Philadelphia in 1967, to today’s crossover propagandists like Ron English, who are as happy tagging walls as they are painting cars or designing clothing. The film’s most engaging […]
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Last Year at Marienbad
A Succinct Review for the Discerning Cinephile
Alain Resnais’ 1961 French film Last Year at Marienbad is both highly regarded and almost entirely inscrutable. Anyone who claims to understand it is lying: Last Year at Marienbad is not a film you “get,” but a film you have theories about. (If you Google it, you turn up essays like “Last Year at Marienbad: […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Demi Moore Has a Terrible Accent
Flawless: Sort of Suspenseful
Michael Caine could play an estate planner who did nothing but read books about estate planning in a beige chair in a beige room for 90 minutes and I would still pay 10 dollars to see it. Demi Moore, on the other hand, could play somebody interesting doing interesting things, while naked, with other naked […]
Posted inMovies & TV
By the Numbers
21 Splits When it Should Hit
Blackjack aficionados have already thrilled to Ben Mezrich’s book Bringing Down the House, a true story about a group of MIT students/blackjack card counters who shake down Vegas for millions of dollars. In a nutshell: A professor organizes a team of math whizzes who have a gift for remembering numbers (“card counting” is just that—recalling […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Chow Down
CJ7: Stephen Chow’s Kid Flick
If you’re a fan of Stephen Chow’s last two films, 2004’s Kung Fu Hustle and 2001’s Shaolin Soccer, you’ve come to expect Chow’s unique blend of action, comedy, and melodrama. This time around, all those ingredients are there—but all the same, CJ7 isn’t the movie you’ve been waiting four years to see. CJ7‘s bizarre plot […]