Remove the chain, cuz this is off it.

Here’s just another example why it’s foolish to refer to critics (indeed, any broad group of people) as a singular whole. Among 2007’s most critically tarnished films was Guy Ritchie’s Revolver, which, if the word around the campfire was any indication, I expected to be twice as physically off-putting as the rotten blue tones of I Know Who Killed Me. But then, the most divisive films have often been among the most interesting, and even if I wasn’t inclined to call it some kind of greatness, I’d be hard-pressed to not give it a thumbs-up for its sheer determination. Call it what you will, it doesn’t front and it doesn’t flinch.

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Continue reading ‘Crazy-insane or insane-crazy?’ »

“When an experiment works, there’s no need to call it ‘experimental.’”
– Dave Edelstein on Paranoid Park.

This needs no explanation. Just something worth pointing out.

Sometime in the evening during rush hour. I’m trying to get home. A train comes but it’s full and no one gets on. “That’s seven of them,” a woman says to her friend. “I don’t think we’re gonna make yoga at this point. Oh well, wanna go tomorrow?”

War is hell’s little-seen lighter side.

If only pop culture weren’t such a desecration to the majority of its chosen cinematic icons, maybe film as entertainment would have a better chance at being taken seriously in today’s world of faux-critical elitism. Such were the thoughts running through my mind when I recently caught up on my blind spot that was First Blood, Sylvester Stallone’s now-iconic first foray into the role of John Rambo, a decorated Vietnam veteran who returns home to find a country uncaring of his psychological and social plights, shunning him just as they shun understanding the complexities of the world outside their own borders. The distancing, simplifying attitudes of VH1 culture—not to mention the gluttony of unnecessary sequels—has taught us to remember the film as a shoot ‘em up extravaganza of a war machine, a falsity that left me shocked to find a work so emotionally nuanced to 70’s wartime suffering and social unrest, far more so than such recent attempts to reflect on our own political moment.

Continue reading ‘The Rambo We Know?’ »

In Radar magazine, Charles Kaiser talks about the new Will.i.am song as the defining “synergy of culture and politics” that completes Barack Obama’s hope movement. In the video for “Yes, We Can,” Will.i.am and others echo soundbites from Obama’s speeches, which seems like a perfectly common riff on the PSA formula wherein a bunch of famous people tell you why you should care about something. So how this qualifies as “four minutes and 30 seconds of pure magic” or harks back to the ’60s in any way has got us stumped. Kaiser lobs curious assertions like this gem: “It’s filmed in black and white, which gives it the feel of the early ’60s.” It’s also funny that he should compare Will.i.am’s activist song to Bob Dylan, who was, well, anything but.

Happy Super Tuesday.