All about me.
Yesterday, we discussed the idea that, despite all their baying at the moon over the presence of the Great Usurper, Republicans are going to line up behind spoiled condiment receptacle Donald Trump if he manages to garner enough delegates for the G.O.P. nomination. (The frequently excellent Hamilton Nolan explains why in …
It is not, despite the angsty sweat-beads flying cartoonlike from the foreheads of a thousand keyboard town criers, a foregone conclusion that Donald J. Trump, a decayed yam in a gimme cap that has somehow amassed a real estate fortune and learned how to mumble the word ‘quality’, is going to …
HBO can afford disasters. Since they don’t run on a pure ratings model, but depend for their business on a sustainable production roster and critical goodwill, the fact that their new and star-studded series, Vinyl, is attracting far fewer eyeballs than shows that got canceled far more quickly doesn’t really matter that …
It’s a truism I’ve repeated in my critical writings more times than I can count: you have to review the movie you’re watching, not the movie you wish you were watching. Any sharp critic with a creative streak and a broad foundation can easily imagine how a movie, particularly one …
As often as the Coen Brothers are referred to as pastiche artists, their films tend to be pretty thematically consistent, with the genre-bending taking place more on the level of the filmmaking than the narrative. Their newest movie, Hail! Caesar, gives them a chance to exercise it in truth, with its …
Nothing gives you a more bracing sensation of how crazily prolific Seijun Suzuki was during his most fertile period at Nikkatsu than the fact that Tokyo Drifter and Fighting Elegy — two movies that are light-years apart in terms of tone, subject matter, and setting — were both made in the same …
Our next installment of Seijunuary deals with what is likely Seijun Suzuki’s best-known film, not so much because it’s his greatest work, but because, for a lot of his famous fans, it was the first one they ever saw. Tokyo Drifter was one of the earliest Suzuki films to get …
I am, to put it mildly, extremely distrustful of reality shows, especially of the competitive variety. Leaving aside the fact that, due to behind-the-scenes staging and manipulation, they rarely qualify as either ‘reality’ or ‘competition’, they also tend to have the nastiest hallmarks of unscripted television: pandering to the lowest …
The second entry in our month of films by eccentric Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki (who, at 92 and beset by health problems, keeps on keeping on and has just recently lensed a documentary and appeared in a new television commercial, a profitable sideline for which he is arguably better known …
Well, the news in this corner of the world — a world that seems less strange and charming without David Bowie in it — is the same as it is all over. He had one last shock in him, and he kept us guessing until the end; I wish like …
With the Gene Siskel center hosting a traveling road show of films by Japanese director Seijun Suzuki, I figured this would be a good month to recap some of his most striking films. And ‘striking’ is the right word. Suzuki has an incredible eye, and while his movies generally are …
Hi, loyal readers! LP dot com will be taking the next week to celebrate Christmas with loved ones. I hope you have a chance to do the same. If you celebrate Christmas in a religious way, may Baby Jesus smile on you and yours. If you celebrate it in a …
Justin Kurzel made his reputation with The Snowtown Murders, a shocking and eerie true-crime film from 2011. Eschewing the usual gore and horror of most serial killer flicks, Snowtown focused on the plight of an abandoned community, whose poverty, isolation, and abandonment by legitimate authority made it easy prey for …
With new installments of both Star Wars and Star Trek on the way, it could not be more clear that nerd culture has had its revenge on cinema. Rather than waiting to see either of them — I don’t really care to, since I’ve never been especially interested in either franchise — I …
Hi, everybody! Today we’re going to talk about a certain presidential candidate, and that means we’re going to have to use the f-word. The candidate is Donald Trump, and the word, of course, is “fuckface”. Ha ha! Just kidding! The word is “fascism”, and the candidate is “all of them”. …
