I saw another list. The internet is a tyranny of lists. At first, I enjoyed participating, ranking my own taste against that of, well, everybody else. But now, now I’ve seen too many lists, had my heart broken one too many times. This list was about TV shows. Nearly every winner premiered in the last 25 years, with a hefty weighting toward the more contemporary. Where’s the fun in that? Has nobody ever heard of Ernie Kovacs? I’m only 30,... Read more
For the last couple months, I have been reading Peter Weiss’ Aesthetics of Resistance (1971-1981) alongside others with a penchant for self-flagellation. It’s a mammoth, paragraph-less, three-volume novel set in late 30s Germany, populated with long-forgotten Communist intellectuals, featuring excurses on, inter alia, the history of class as expressed through the Pergamon Altar, Stalinist show trials, the realism of Brueghel’s The Fight between Carnival and Lent (1559), and the ever-defeated attempts by the SPD and KPD to form a popular... Read more
Five seconds on the internet—heck, maybe in person too—and you’ll hear the magic words: you couldn’t make that today. Mores shift. Tastes change. TV in the Eisenhower years seems unlikely to have broadcasted a teleplay of 120 Days of Sodom (1785, 1899). Gen Z wants fewer sex scenes in movies. Brian De Palma balks. This particular lament, however, has a particular meaning: we’ve become a bunch of over-sensitive dimwits who can’t handle boys palling around. I’ll leave the truth content... Read more
I found Jacob’s Ladder (1990) when I was too young. I only knew that it was scary. To me, it had no plot. Some war of which I was dimly aware. A scene reminiscent of that cancelled episode of Pokémon (1997-Present), the one that induced seizures. Jake (Tim Robbins) was unhappy. He was scared. Now, I know he is a PhD working at the Post Office. He discusses Meister Eckhart with his cherubic chiropractor. The job market has been so... Read more
Robert Altman loves an ensemble cast. He does not, however, typically set his films at lavish aristocratic estates in the English countryside. Certainly, Altman didn’t earn his stripes making whodunits. And yet, Gosford Park (2001) is all these things. More than anything, it’s a phenomenal watch, a testament to what made Altman so special. What makes me love Altman is his willingness to let his actors and films be. His characters scurry in and out of rooms, overhear conversations, get... Read more
Children of the pre-streaming era, post-cable era have their own special collections. Not only would you get the same commercials all the time but you’d see the same movies too. Occasionally, there was a treat. Something unexpected would slip in, split your head like a watermelon, and expand your world. Mostly, however, you got Bloodsport (1988) and Half-Baked (1998). If you were really lucky, the bigwigs beamed a transfixing picture show into your bloodshot eyeballs with regularity. I was so... Read more
I’m flabbergasted Irma la Douce (1963) isn’t better known. Sure, as a Billy Wilder picture there’s steep competition. It’s not among his best. But it is unabashedly among his strangest, a risqué film for 2024 let alone 1963. I confess to not having seen the musical upon which it’s based, but Wilder’s experiment with Parisian farce works. Where else can you find pimp unions, prostitutes who act like husbands bringing home the bacon, and Jack Lemmon working as a failed... Read more
Suzanne’s Career (1963) reminds me of an uncomfortable time in my life. Like a lot of men from the suburbs, I thought I had it figured out. Up was up and down was down. My second year of college, I remember getting in a fight with my friends over a female friend within the group, though I never would have admitted the cause at the time. I wandered off in a rage until I found a more freewheeling acquaintance, who... Read more
Challengers (2024) satisfies. The actors perform admirably. I don’t know much about tennis, but the CGI tennis ball POV shots, smashing around here and there, kept me excited. No doubt Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s droning electronic score helped. It seemed to me a story of vain decadence and self-sabotage. Everyone is rich. Everyone is ambitious. No one has any real problems. Luca Guadagnino shines a spotlight on three of the most empty, self-interested people ever to walk this earth.... Read more
As a kid, Disney’s Pinocchio (1940) scared the hell out of me. Not the whole thing, mind you. But, shaking like a leaf, I couldn’t look away when Pinocchio, Lampwick, and the gang drank, smoked, and fought themselves silly on Pleasure Island. “Pleasure,” I thought. “Pleasure feels good, right? Why is Pinocchio turning into a donkey?” Of course, he had become a literal jackass. I wasn’t sure what beer was. My parents smoked, so I had that down. But, if... Read more
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