Now that I finally have a moment to breathe, I can post a treat for you. Last Friday I saw Flying Lotus and Dr Strangeloop — an experimental hip hop artist and visual artist (and sometimes musician), respectively — perform a “live musical score to Harry Smith’s 1962 animated avant-garde classic Heaven & Earth Magic” [...]
Posts under ‘film’
My 10 Favorite Films of the Decade, 2000-2009
I’ve come to dislike New Years Eve very much. Not only will it never live up to my romantic vision of the night, but lately it’s become a source of frustration that I’d rather avoid altogether. I suppose part of it is about forcing ourselves to look back at the year we just finished, and [...]
There’s No Waking Up From Neverland
The imminent release of Tim Burton’s (epic failure) remake of Alice in Wonderland has me thinking about that story. What’s that? I’ve already offended you? You think it’s going to be wicked awesome? Well, you should stop sniffing glue. Have you seen the new official trailer? It looks like a CGI monster snotted all over [...]
When the Going Gets Alien, the Humans Get Stupid
About a month ago I visited a local theater to see District 9, a “summer blockbuster” that I thought was directed by Peter Jackson. While I don’t give Jackson as much credit for King Kong as the rest of the viewing population did, his work on The Lord of the Rings was nothing short of [...]
Che Guevara: The Jungian Interpretation
I recently watched both parts of Che, the 2008 biopic of Ernesto “Che” Guevara starring Benicio Del Toro and directed by Steven Soderbergh. I don’t intend to comment extensively on the quality of the film. However, its overall impact is questionable; that’s evident by its average score of 64 (out of 100) on Metacritic.com. I [...]
As the Industry Falls, Journalism Will Rise
I experienced two things in the last week that have me thinking about the current and future state of journalism. First was the film State of Play, the most recent from director Kevin Macdonald. His 2006 film The Last King of Scotland was at least extremely disturbing if not highly overrated, but I didn’t know [...]
The Philosophy of Remix Culture
On Saturday, March 28, 2009, the Ann Arbor Film Festival hosted the second public screening of RiP: A Remix Manifesto, a new documentary by Canadian filmmaker Brett Gaylor. Normally I’d put the video trailer at the end, but for those of you who haven’t seen it (or who aren’t familiar with these issues), I’d like [...]
Burn After Browsing
What do sex addiction, neighborhood gyms, and the CIA have in common? Absolutely nothing. And that’s probably why the Coen Brothers made Burn After Reading the way they did. Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have always been a strange duo. I’m most familiar with them as the writer/director team behind The Big Lebowski, one of [...]
