Articles in Culture and Criticism
Whimsical but not twee, grand but not grandiose, The Secret of Kells put me in mind of certain Samurai Jack episodes, specifically the one with the Viking-esque hall-of-warriors sequence.The animation is nothing technologically ground-breaking, but …
The tears started rolling five minutes in. I always cry at Pixar movies — even Cars; shut up — so I don’t know why I thought I would escape from Up with a dry face, …
I don’t know what to make of Precious. It shouldn’t have worked for me — I expected it not to work for me — and yet, somehow, it did. Despite Precious’s situation being so bleak …
Watching The Blind Side and Avatar in a 12-hour period is not recommended, but is nevertheless instructive.
For those of you who avoid my baseball entries, I’ve written in the past about the reaction to players …
If you’ve read Fast Food Nation or The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Inc. won’t cover any new ground for you.It’s a well-crafted doc, though, and I filled up with rage all over again at the way …
Coen movies live near that line that separates the unlikeable characters who nonetheless hold your attention and the unlikeable characters who are merely unlikeable. There’s something to be said for realistic portrayals of selfish, unpleasant …
The story Burma VJ tells is fascinating, and shocking and enraging.As a movie, alas, it comes across as muffled, because…well, it’s reporting from a closed country.Thanks to a repressive government, the footage is smuggled out …
I can’t get completely on board with the screenplay nom for An Education — it’s speechy in spots, and occasionally feels as though it’s waiting for the jokes to land.
Carey Mulligan’s performance, however, is fantastic.The …
Sweet movie, but with both its feet planted on the correct side of the cutesy line. The expected over-explanation of and/or moralizing about why Coraline wants out of the Other world never materialized; she …
Facing two subtitled hours about an Italian politician I’d never heard of, merely for the sake of crossing a Best Makeup nominee off the list, I considered withdrawing from the Oscars 2010 Death Race entirely …
