Eye Of The Beholder: Beauty Bares Its Teeth In ‘Neon Demon’

I’ve seen a lot of movies. A lot of them contain some pretty shocking stuff. I don’t necessarily like gore or explicitly disturbing subject matter, but my cinematic journeys often lead me toward such material anyway. I’m more adventurous than the average moviegoer. Sometimes, I think I’ve seen it all. After a while, one act of abhorrent […]

Gold Rush: 2012 Emmy Nominations

Depending on whether or not I’m currently watching anything on TV, I sometimes do and sometimes don’t care about the Emmys. But this year I do!

“It’s A Time Machine…”: The 15 Best ‘Mad Men’ Moments (So Far)

Is it me, or does the summer movie season get less lustrous every year? Sure, there are standouts — this summer, The Avengers, Prometheus, and The Dark Knight Rises have all been high on my to-see list — but the majority of what’s out isn’t all that attractive. There’s an ever-widening gap between art and […]

The Not-Oscars 2011

It’s that time of year again, folks! What I like to call “movie Christmas.” And like an actual holiday, the Academy Awards often end up as more of a disappointment than anything else — any Oscars handed out to not-so-great nominated films like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and The Iron Lady can be chalked […]

‘Iron’ Deficiency: A Supernatural Thriller About Margaret Thatcher

(Films discussed in this post: I Don’t Know How She Does It, The Arbor, Colombiana, The Iron Lady.) In 2011, there were plenty of movies about scheming, boozing bad girls like the out-of-control flock of Bridesmaids or the self-destructive prom queen in Young Adult (see my post on “The Chicks”). Fun, right? To counterbalance this, […]

Fuck Fuck, Splat Splat: The Best Sex & Violence Of 2011

(Movies discussed in this post: Shame, Hunger, and Drive.) In film criticism, it is trendy to champion the smallest of movies. Micro-budgeted, artsy, foreign language — any or all of these qualities will do. The more bare-bones and stripped down a film is, the better. Basically, the less a movie has going for it to appeal […]