Tag: cinema
The best films and performances of 2015 (so far)
I know it seems like the height of foolishness to put out a “best of” list when there is still a week to go in the first half of 2015. But I am going out on a limb and assuming that Ted 2 will not crack my Best Picture list even after I get around…
Interviewing Adam Wade: Storytelling, Schumer and Spicy Food
Storytelling comes naturally to Adam Wade, and it’s only natural that he’d use the stage—which has seen him win 20 Slams at The Moth (a New York-based nonprofit whose focus is the development and performance of stories)—to ply his trade. But he has also appeared on the small screen, including seasons two and three of…
‘San Andreas’ and the Bad Habit of Eating Popcorn While the World Burns
Director Brad Peyton and writer Carlton Cuse had the chance to do something truly remarkable in San Andreas, something that might have sent a shockwave through mainstream American film equal to the quake that decimates the Pacific coast in their movie. Something that might have changed the course of human history. The fact that they…
A Dissenting Opinion on ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
Pacing is one of the movies’ great mysteries. It’s impossible to prescribe a guaranteed-gold formula. Films that are, on the surface, devoid of traditional action can fly by like X-wing fighters screeching around the Death Star. And flicks that jump from cut to cut while featuring sped-up cinematography and other tricks may feel as slothful…
‘Kung Fury’, ‘Predator: Dark Ages’ and the Democratisation of Spectacle
As a member of a short film selection panel for a major film festival in 2013 and 2014, I was quite surprised by the increasing number of submissions that sought to replicate big-budget Hollywood genre cinema. I suppose I had, quite ignorantly, entered with a preconception that short films were the reserve of art cinema.…