Author: Jonathan Eig
The best films, performers, and other talent of 2016 thus far
Critics sure do love our year-end best-of lists. It’s kind of what we live for. I love them too, but I don’t wait until year’s end. No – that’s not how I roll. I prefer to write them at the end of August. Sure, it leaves out four months – four pretty important months if…
Who Wore It Better: A Cinematic Smackdown
News flash: Hollywood is derivative. I’ll pause here to let that sink in. I know it must come as quite a shock. So I suppose if I’m a producer and I’m plunking down 50 mill on two hours of fantasy, I’d want as much assurance as possible that an audience would actually come see the…
Reviewing Shemi Zarhin’s The Kind Words: Is Perfection Enough?
How important is scope when determining a movie’s value? I am taunted by this question every time I get into an argument with someone over the relative worth of a virtually perfect smaller movie – say, The Full Monty – and a highly flawed, grand endeavour – say, Gangs of New York. At the risk…
Jason Bourne and everything that’s wrong with Hollywood today
The five biggest movies that opened in the USA in the last weekend of July, 2016 had the following Rotten Tomato scores: 76, 62, 58, 57, 50. For those of you who don’t know, RT considers a movie to be “Fresh” if it has 60 or higher, and “Rotten” is it falls under 60. So,…
Ben Wheatley directs J. G. Ballard’s “High-Rise”: Why movies should move
This is a very simple rule, and, as with most simple rules, we must allow for a great many exceptions. But the rule still has merit. Movies are better when they move. That’s why Joon-ho Bong’s Snowpiercer is better than Ben Wheatley’s new movie High-Rise. Well, one reason, anyway. One very simple reason. The stories…