Tag: film
The Hip Six: The Coolest Films of 2016
“He’s the exact opposite of everything I really hate. In a way he’s such a clueless dork that he’s almost cool.” “That guy is many things but he definitely isn’t “cool.” And so goes the argument between Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) over the merits of Seymour (Steve Buscemi) in Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost…
The Mute Child in Three Films: The Fits, Kicks, and Moonlight
2016 has been a mediocre year for mainstream American film. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some excellent work. But the product as a whole has been mired in redundant sequels and superheroes, and the blandness of the output is cause for alarm. But there is also cause for hope. This is all anecdotal for…
Musicians In Film: 10 Great Musical Talents We Lost In 2016
I hesitate to draw conclusions before all the facts are in, but let’s face it. 2016 has sucked. And not just in the land of cinema, where precious few gems have risen above the extraordinary wave of mediocrity we have witnessed. As the world at large retreats from communality, decency and fact, we need artists…
Decrying/Praising ‘The Book of Life’ and ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’
What do you get when you add unbridled creativity to a project with limited substance? Well, it’s possible something good may come out of it. In the case of The Book of Life (2014) and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), however, you get cinematic dreck. I know—that’s rather harsh. But these two films may…
The Blue and The Grey: The American Civil War on film
So many films have been made about this long and tragic civil war that I would not attempt to examine them all in one post. However, it is interesting to see how film-makers have dealt with the subject over the more than one hundred year history of cinema. As long ago as 1915, D.W. Griffith…