Reaction Shots

I have only half-joked that after Orson Welles, Roger Corman is the most influential filmmaker in American cinema history. If you grew up with the movies of Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Bruce Dern, Brian De Palma, Vincent Price, George Lucas, or literally, dozens if not hundreds of others, you are a fan of Roger Corman. With his passing earlier this month, cinema history saw another giant off to into Valhalla. There have been plenty of memorials, think pieces, and articles about him in the ensuing weeks, but I think I’ll take a more personal approach.  A very young Jack Nicholson. I think I can safely say that I grew up on Corman productions and the first movie that I remember of his was The Terror from 1963 with Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, and Sandra Knight. Now, to be sure, the directing is credited to Roger and this is fair. But the second unit work included Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, and Nicholson himself.  It’s not a great...

That John Wick is referenced directly in dialog in Dev Patel's Monkey Man is almost metatextual in a film that exists in a world where the current narrative plays out according to type, very closely resembling the first Wick film. But where the Keanu Reeves led film and its series are as much commentaries and auto-commentaries on the action film genre and its tropes, Patel's is going for something more and deeper. The fact that he pulled together a film that while wearing its antecedents and influences on its sleeve and making an original statement within the genre (and by extension, about the genre), this is might actually be secondary to the political critique/critiques that run throughout the work. It is also this that has led some reviewers to say that the film doesn't wholly succeed because it is trying to be more than a mere action flick. This is, of course, nonsense. Yes, Monkey Man is a rousing, action-packed, gripping, suspenseful flick. It is also fueled by a g...

Earlier this year, I had a list of movies to be released. A quick tally led to a surprising result that almost half of those releases were sequels or movies based on previously existing IP. After a second or two, I caught myself and figured I didn't really need to be surprised. There are a few reasons why. One is that it's the market attuning itself to what the consumers want based on sales trends in merchandising connected to those properties. One way to check to see what character might be in an upcoming Marvel or DC film is to check a toy store; tie-in materials sometimes make it to the shelves well in advance of a movie dropping, but the point is that those tie-ins reflect the commercial bonds that drive mass movie-going attendance and consumption. Another reason is that, of course, what proved profitable at one time is likely to be so at another, though this is a riskier proposition for investors. Any shortfall in theatrical performance is likely to be assumed to be offset...

One of the great things about a blog is that I'm not beholden to deadlines. I can tell the boss I don't feel like writing anything and he doesn' t care; in fact, he often agrees with me and even enables my slacking. The downside is that I actually get to missing the act of writing, applying my meager critical skills, and sharing this with whomever. March flew by and I thought I'd actually written more than I had. I have a spreadsheet I use of movies seen and a column marked "for RS?" that receives a "Y" if I feel like I should write up a movie. The "Y" is in red font, to remind me to follow through and once published, I switch the font to black. That way, I have a record of what I've written.  What's wacky about this is that while I have a spate of films I saw in March, and the "Y"s are all in red, there is a bunch of films in February that have black "Y"s by their titles that I haven't written up and some ...

The Little Gold Guy is back... Honestly, I don't care. I've had a general antipathy toward the Academy Awards for decades, ever since Raging Bull was passed over for Best Picture for Ordinary People (which is, of course, a very good film; no flies on it, but Scorsese's masterwork was a leap forward in depth of narrative, use of film grammar, and is simply a towering masterpiece of cinema).  I also have a dim view of most of the nominees in any given year. Last year was brilliant, with Everything Everywhere All at Once raising the bar for what can be honored by AMPAS. This year, I'm more intrigued; it's been a good while since every entry is a remarkable work and in half the cases, An Important Film. I think I'd be good with just about any of them winning. I've already covered Past Lives , Poor Things ,  The Zone of Interest , The Holdovers , Killers of the Flower Moon , Barbie , and Oppenheimer ; I'm remiss that I haven't given the rest their due,...