Assuming you have seen the one-minute Jurassic World trailer that ran during the Super Bowl – and, let’s be honest, who hasn’t? – you know it opens on a clip featuring a five-ton Mosasaurus swallowing a great white shark as if it were a minnow. There is a message here, an overt signal that Universal…
“I wish I had cancer.” How’s that for a salvo? If it throws you for a loop, it won’t take long before your mind begins to wonder, “What fresh hell could be more harrowing than that?” The answer, both in life and in Still Alice, is a slow and steady deterioration of the brain, the…
The story of Sissy Spacek is a story based on family. It is the story of a poor girl, from Texas, a shy girl, a homecoming queen. It is the story of a teenage brother who died of leukemia; of a grief-stricken sister who ran away to New York. It is the story of two…
Banksy … what a prankster. To hear some people tell it, he’s either a genius or a poseur, a messiah or a screw. Banksy’s derivative and he’s decadent. He’s totally unsanctioned, hullabaloo. He’s a lark and a goof, a social satirist and a crock. He’s a solo act; no, part of a collective. He’s a…
Two years ago the documentary Brooklyn Castle very quietly arrived in limited release – a staggered rollout focused on independent theaters in select metropolitan areas around the country. Despite a lack of financing, Katie Dellamaggiore’s documentary would go on to win the hearts and minds of critics, representing – as it did – an apt…
Of the 21 short stories included in Simon & Schuster’s original Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (1940), 14 have been adapted into full-length motion pictures. Of the seven that have not, three are six pages or less, one has been adapted into a television program, and another has inspired an hour-long musical…
There comes a point in every budding director’s career, usually a few movies in, where the circumstances align to allow for a breakthrough. The backing is there, the level of control is reasonable. The director is young and hungry and vibrant, wholly convinced that he or she has got something to prove. The script is…