8 years ago
Longform (10 posts found)
“That’s Italian!”: On the 25th Anniversary of “GoodFellas”
I was fifteen years old on September 21st, 1990 – the day Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas opened in theatres -- and a full two carloads of us had negotiated the necessary curfew extensions to go see a 10:30 PM show at the Showcase multiplex in Revere, a suburb ju...
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How M. Night Shyamalan Lost His Place In The Cinematic World
There was a time when M. Night Shyamalan was not a joke: when each new film of his didn’t offer a better punch line; when you were sure something like the trailer for his latest film, The Visit, wasn’t meant to be funny; when his name wasn’t literally laughabl...
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“Z for Zachariah” And The Future of Humanity
Robert C. O’Brien’s 1974 novel Z for Zachariah tells a story of Paradise unregainable. In O’Brien’s novel, unlike Craig Zobel’s recent film adaptation, there is no Caleb character at all. Instead, Loomis is the man who killed his coworker. He has few good inte...
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Why Fan Theories Are Destroying Film Discourse
Did you know that, in The Dark Knight, the hero was actually the Joker? It’s true—if you buy into this recent theory posited by a user on Reddit. And did you know that Andy’s mom in Toy Story is also the grown version of the girl named Emily in Toy Story 2 who...
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Wes Craven: In Memoriam
It's clear from the outpouring of love after his death on August 30 that Wes Craven was not just a revered horror filmmaker, but also a pioneer in a kind of socially minded self-aware genre filmmaking that continues to flourish today. Before he made films, he ...
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The Divergent Career of Alex Ross Perry
Alex Ross Perry’s fourth film, the paranoid thriller Queen of Earth, marks a departure for the 31-year-old director, though in a sense he has been diverging from both his work and that of his peers from the start of his career. With its ambling photography and...
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“Z for Zachariah” Finds Virtue In Scaling Back
On paper, Z For Zachariah resembles a much larger operation than it turned out to be. Right off the bat, it’s an adaptation of post-apocalyptic lit, an apparently boundless well into which Hollywood has plunged its bucket quite frequently over the past few yea...
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Why Kristen Stewart Is Hollywood’s Most Sincere Starlet
Following Kristen Stewart’s turns in the Twilight series, among the most widely mocked film franchises of all time, public perception of the actress was less than kind. She usually seemed uncomfortable in the spotlight, gradually garnering a reputation for nev...
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“Phoenix” Is The Cure for The Common Holocaust Movie
On Ricky Gervais’ sorely missed HBO sitcom Extras, Kate Winslet makes an appearance as a funhouse-mirror version of herself while shooting a Holocaust picture. In an extremely candid moment between takes, she confides in Gervais’ sad-sack Z-lister Andy Millman...
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SNL In Review: “The 40-Year Old Virgin”
In the beginning, the dictatorship led us to such a strong foundation… it didn't fall because of the root foundation of one man's idea. –RZA, Wu-Tang Clan
Besides Lorne Michaels, no one over the past quarter-century has molded more successful comic careers th...
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