‘Frank’ Creatively Explores Social Media Solipsism
Frank uses Twitter and Tumblr without ever striking a false note in its depiction of an erratic indie rock band struggling through the artistic process.
Jesse Hassenger
Todd Haynes’ ‘Safe’ Is Often Lost in a World of Ideas
Julianne Moore’s evocative performance aside, Todd Haynes’ Safe seems designed for a soulless film studies interpretation.
‘It Happened One Night’ Is Graceful and Quick as a Magic Trick
Frank Capra’s Oscar-dominating film, 1934’s It Happened One Night is still funny, romantic, and quite beautiful to look at 80 years later.
In ‘The Party’, Peter Sellers’ Brownface Is the Elephant in the Room
While Peter Sellers' role as an Indian man in The Party may represent just another one of his masks, it also does problematize this 1968 film.
‘Donnie Brasco’ Shows It’s Easy to Get Lost in the Underworld
When Mike Newell's relatively low-key mob movie was released in 1997, Al Pacino and Johnny Depp were at very different junctures than they are today.
‘Wetlands’: Grossing Out and Coming of Age Now
Wetlands is both sweet if off-kilter love story and a movie full of stomach-churning material. Think of a substance you might find unpleasant, and you can probably find it here.
Nixonian Paranoia in 2014: ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’
The Captain America movies are well-suited to mix and match time periods with a comic-book-y flair.
‘The Expendables 3’: More Action, Less Sequence
As a movie, The Expendables 3 is kind of a shambles. As part of a never-ending retirement party, it's kind of a gas.
Aronofsky’s ‘Noah’ Interprets the Bible With Intensity
The film retells the story of Noah's Ark filtered through Aronofsky's intensity, rather than the pageantry of the faith-movie industry.
Woody Allen’s ‘Magic in the Moonlight’ Considers the Value of Illusion
Stanley rejects the very notion of an afterlife, bitterly noting, like so many Woody Allen characters before him, that our current existence is all we get.