8 years ago
All posts by Dan Schindel
The Summer of Love: A Movie Preview
For many people, summer means beaches and fireworks and camping and other outdoorsy activities. For cinephiles, it means loving blockbusters, disparaging blockbusters, or some combination of both (hopefully in addition to the aforementioned activities -- live ...
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Bringing Humanity to the Screen: Paul Walker & “Furious Seven”
The death of Paul Walker during the filming of Furious Seven posed an unprecedented challenge to director James Wan and his crew. It was, of course, hardly the first time an actor had passed away while working on a film, but never before had it happened with a...
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“Furious Seven”
Observers have joked that the Fast & Furious movies couldn’t bring vehicular action to any higher level of impossibility. Furious Seven shut them up with its trailer, which featured skydiving cars. We should not tempt fate with any further speculation on w...
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Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado on “The Salt of the Earth”
For decades, Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado has been one of the most celebrated social photographers in the world. He gets his due in the new documentary The Salt of the Earth, which both recounts his life and work, and uses both as a lens through...
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Kornél Mundruczó and Teresa Miller on “White God”
When Hungarian writer/director Kornél Mundruczó wanted to make a cinematic parable in which stray dogs stand in for humanity’s social undesirables, he knew he’d need a skilled animal coordinator/trainer to pull it off. The story of White God involves hundreds ...
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“Man From Reno”
Like an early Coen brothers film from an alternate universe, or an adaptation of a forgotten straight-to-paperback airport crime novel, Man from Reno wrings thrills out of small moments and seemingly low stakes. The story follows two disparate threads that con...
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“The Gunman”
The Gunman is an odd hodgepodge of conflicting ideas. It’s adapted from an existentialist French crime novel from the 1980s, but turns it into a conventional action thriller that aims to please some crowds—workable. But onto that is grafted a twinge of social ...
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“Buzzard”
Thanks to the efforts of Judd Apatow and his contemporaries and cohorts, the manboy currently dominates American pop culture. Slackers, stoners, dweebs, and the like are not just “in” -- they are. The dude who’s refused to accept one more iota of responsibilit...
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“What We Do In the Shadows”
It makes complete sense that What We Do in the Shadows is a feature-length adaptation of a short film. Its concept screams “short.” And the process of stretching it out has turned it from pretty swell to merely agreeable. In theory, it’s not impossible for a m...
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The Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Short Films
Every year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards Oscars in three categories dedicated to short films. Every year, viewers at home use the giving of these awards as a good time to get a snack or go to the bathroom. It’s ironic that people don’...
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