Before Being John Malkovich, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman were little more than two aspiring artists (the former a successful music video director, the latter a struggling screenwriter) who knew nothing about each other. Jonze was easily the more famous of the two, but not unlike Kaufman, any semblance of work on the silver screen […]
It’s not very often that a film leaves me wanting to know more about it, yet at the same time, completely and utterly satisfied with most everything I’ve seen onscreen. In fact, searching my memory for examples now, I can only come up with a couple: Brazil (Terry Gilliam’s superb dystopian fantasy, which has to […]
Child’s Play 2, despite somehow being seen by some as better than its predecessor (the only—and I repeat, the only—thing about it that even remotely sparked my interest), is exactly what I feared it would be: a pretty lackluster sequel to a surprisingly clever and unique horror flick. For hardcore Chucky fans and slasher buffs, […]
As revered among the cult crowd as it may be now, Up in Smoke was a movie destined to be misunderstood upon its initial release. Critics walked into it expecting a tight, fairly straightforward comedy from Cheech and Chong (a countercultural comedy team that had been performing for ten years before the thought of making a movie […]
For all its scares, laughs, and memorable lines of dialogue (“Hi, I’m Chucky. Wanna play?”), perhaps the most immediately interesting thing about Child’s Play—at least, for me—is how it both embraces and rejects everything associated with typical ‘80s slashers. On one hand, it builds up genuinely creepy moments of suspense, yet is proudly unafraid to […]
When it comes to great sci-fi, the style and approach it takes can be incredibly varied. Some films in that area are clever, thoughtful portraits of what humanity could be like in years long ahead of us (Brazil, for instance). Others opt for over-the-top, yet grippingly crafted action, while not forgetting to keep audiences engaged […]
Most of the time, I really try to avoid generalizing actors based on the types of movies they usually work in, or the type of people they usually work with. It’s lazy, closed-minded, and even runs the risk of being offensive if said generalizations become widespread enough. That being said, though, for many years, I […]
In all fairness, The Godfather Part III wasn’t really the fault of Francis Ford Coppola. His 1982 musical drama One from the Heart, despite coming only three years after the incredibly successful Apocalypse Now, bombed so badly that he was soon facing serious financial issues, leaving him with only two options: direct, produce, and co-write […]
As the Rocky, Rambo, and even Police Academy films have all proved over the years, making sequels to movies people like is easy. Making said sequels live up to their predecessors’ standards is a bit harder, though it can be done (Aliens). Francis Ford Coppola didn’t just accomplish this for one of the most acclaimed […]
As you may already know, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the most recent Star Trek films. Instead of fitting the more thoughtful tone, relaxed atmosphere, and steady pacing that made the classic Trek TV shows so timeless, they mainly (“mainly” meaning every one of them except 2009’s surprisingly solid Star Trek, which still had […]
