Navigation

Archive | Essays

5 Reasons Stars Play Superheroes

August 1, 2014 in Essays, Film Matters, Reviews

Here’s a surprise: Guardians of the Galaxy, the latest movie dispatch from the Marvel Universe, is great fun. Unlike such steroidal fare as “The Avengers” films, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, perhaps because it is directed by James Gunn, who is best known for micro-budget indies that send up genre flicks (Super, Slither). Certainly these Guardians are a ragtag group of mercenaries who don’t take anything too seriously: a wily human-raccoon hybrid voiced by Bradley Cooper; a tree-man voiced by Vin Diesel; a green-skinned female assassin (Zoe Saldana) who, unlike most comic book-pic women characters, actually has something to do; and a jacked-up Chris Pratt as a fortune-hunter with a predilection for “awesome music” mix tapes. Overall, despite its maelstrom of intra-extraterrestrial beefs and terminology, this is an unusually witty, even endearing, comic book movie, with serious visual wizardry and, yep, an awesome music soundtrack to sweeten the deal.

But we’ve got to ask: Why do actors of such caliber keep taking these roles? Pratt is an as-yet underrated Hollywood presence but rounding out the Guardians cast is a bevy of Oscar winners and nominees: Cooper, Glenn Close, John C. Reilly, Benicio del Toro, Djimon Hounsou. Sure, the paychecks from these gigs might be good enough to finance these actors’ great-great-great grandchildren’s college educations. But is money the only reason to take these gigs? Believe it or not, industry insiders say no. Here are some other factors for our consideration: Continue Reading →

The Age Gap Is Getting Old

July 25, 2014 in Age Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Film Matters

Though not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, Magic in the Moonlight is one of Woody Allen’s slightest efforts in quite a while. Its central star is the French countryside where it is based, with a distant second played by Colin Firth as an ill-tempered illusionist and Emma Stone as a medium who bewitches him with her bright blue gaze and seemingly legitimate psychic abilities. The dance between a depressive rationalism and magical thinking is a familiar Allen trope, and he brings nothing new to it here. What fun there is to be found stems from Firth sinking his fangs into another Mr. Darcy-like role as well as an unusually demure Stone; early reviews have largely amounted to the critical equivalent of a suppressed yawn.

Certainly the twenty-eight-year age gap between Firth and Stone has caused nary a stir. And that’s really something given that their age difference is actually two years greater than the one between Woody Allen and Mariel Hemingway, whose on-screen romance in 1979’s Manhattan caused such a flap. (Of course, Stone and Firth’s age difference still pales in comparison to the thirty-eight-year age gap between Allen and his real-life wife, Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former girlfriend Mia Farrow.) So what does it mean? Continue Reading →

Director’s Cut: Helming ‘True Detective’

July 11, 2014 in Essays, Listing, TV Matters

When it comes to True Detective season 2, any news is fascinating news. Ever since Season 1 wrapped, the rumors surrounding HBO’s literary-minded goth detective series have been almost as mysterious as the show itself. Who will star in the next season? Where will it take place? And, most recently, who will direct it?

Earlier this week, director William Friedkin told Indiewire that he was considering joining the True Detective team, saying “I like this writer [creator Nic Pizzolatto] very much. I’ve met him, and he’s the real deal.” Though nothing is set in stone just yet, the prospect of this collaboration is a good one. Not only does Friedkin have a flair for psychologically compelling horror – he directed the original The Exorcist as well as that underseen study in paranoia, Bug, (all Michael Shannon fans should see it post-haste) – but he’s made some of the more distinctive cop movies in the history of American film: The French Connection and Cruising (which admittedly is a fail in the identity politics department). Indeed, his films – even 2011’s Killer Joe, which is mostly heralded for launching a McConaussance – build to a thrill by cultivating an appealingly broody familiarity he withdraws the minute we feel comfortable. Bottom line: There’s no director better suited to realize the rarified, yellow kingdoms of “True Detective.”

But assuming the seventy-eight-year-old won’t sign on to film every episode, it’s still worth considering who else might helm Pizzolatto’s moody masterpiece. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy