Author: Jonathan Eig
Hollywood Parking in The Intern: A Sweet Tune Undermined by False Notes
There’s a cliché in American movies and television known as “Hollywood parking.” You know the drill. Middle of New York City. Hero drives up to some swanky spot and parallel parks in front of the door. It’s the kind of thing that never actually happens if you are not in a movie. It’s the kind…
Reflecting on the Saw Series: A Cut Above or a Bloody Mess?
My daddy, before going off to parts unknown, left me with two warnings about life. The first, as you probably could guess, was to never get involved in a land war in Asia. The second was to never trust the title “Final Chapter” when it is applied to a popular film franchise. With news cropping…
Dolares de arena: Small Pleasures, Deep Hearts and Dreams to Explore
The story goes that when financiers of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent film classic The Passion of Joan of Arc screened his initial cut, they were appalled. They had invested quite a bit of money so that Dreyer could recreate the court in Rouen where French clerics would ultimately find Joan guilty of heresy. Yet Dreyer’s…
Why Shyamalan’s The Visit is less than the sum of its parts
You want to know the problem with writing? Everything gets written down. In ink. Posted to websites where it will never go away. And so, occasionally something like this happens. A few weeks ago, I posted a review of the new Jesse Eisenberg movie American Ultra. It was a very positive review for a movie…
A Cinematic Understanding of Adolescent Female Sexuality
Thank heaven for little girls! For little girls get bigger every day! Thank heaven for little girls! They grow up in the most delightful way. (Alan Jay Lerner) It all seemed so innocent back in 1958. Alan Jay Lerner wrote it and Maurice Chevalier sang it and Gigi won the Best Picture Oscar. But America’s awkward embrace of growing…