Category Archives: Features

Our (Belated) Best Movies of the 2000s

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1. There Will Be Blood– Paul Thomas Andersen’s take on a corrupt, independent oil prospector at the turn of the century who just conned a family out of their oil-wealthy land is an epic exploration of two souls squaring off in a new world torn between spiritual and capitalistic ideals. The performance of Daniel Day Lewis gives Daniel Plainview flesh and blood thicker and blacker than the oil he devotes himself to drilling, carrying the film for nearly three hours and never skipping a scene that won’t enthrall. Those who can’t appreciate experimental filmmaking or principals of classic cinema like Citizen Kane will think this movie bores more than it bleeds. Though it’s a tragic tale, telling the American nightmare oppose to the America dream, it’s technically beautiful, if not perfect. The unconventional and strange cinematography and score are just a few of the elements that set Andersen up as rebellious poet, taking a stand against everything the digital film age embodies, and in doing so he creates something just as classic, magnificent and important as Citizen Kane, but clumping them together is injustice. There Will Be Blood mines deep into new territories and in the process, becomes a masterpiece.


2. The Departed– Martin Scorsese’s visceral return to the crime drama yielded extraordinary results.  Packing an unbeatable cast into a winning script by William Monahan, Scorsese creates a world where corruption starts young and gets more powerful with age.  Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Vera Farmiga, and Mark Wahlberg are all excellent, but as with most of his films, Scorsese is the star of the show. He laces this tale of Shakespearean magnitude with perfect music and pacing.  Two and a half hours rarely go by so fast.  You’ll have whiplash by the time the film reaches its bloody climax, and love every second of it.  With The Departed, Scorsese’s created a classic that stands with his best work. Continue reading →

May Box Office in Review

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May in Review

In a way the month as a lot like the movies that filled it, big, bloated, fairly predictable and a little underwhelming. The box office, in recent months, has been on a record breaking streak until it hit this May, one of the worst starts to summer in years. Overall business was down 11% from last year. There were no surprises or break outs like last year’s Star Trek or Up. Then again this year did boast more big pictures, but outside a couple of big (but still under-performing) opening weekends, there wasn’t a whole lot of money to be made.

As I predicted in my box office predictions earlier this summer that Shrek Forever After would open significantly lower ($70 million and I was right on the money) than previous installments and that Iron Man 2 would fizzle out after the opening weekend and prove to have not-so-iron legs. Although I did not predict the box office for the rest of the month, my predictions for Sex and the City and Prince of Persia wouldn’t have been too far off. Here is a weekend by weekend highlight of the month. Continue reading →

If they were in television… Woody Allen

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Director: Woody Allen

Notable Films: Annie Hall, Manhattan, Match Point, Husbands and Wives, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Hannah and Her Sisters

Famous for: Screwball sex comedies, over-thinking relationships, neurotic versions of himself, biting one-liners.

Hypothetical premise: A New York couple, recently broken up, both decide separately to travel to Europe to evaluate what went wrong with their relationship.  The man, a successful writer of Jewish literature, wants more stability in the relationship to ease his many phobias and quirks.  The woman, a semi-famous painter, wants more adventure and chaos to propel her creative energy.  He travels to Britain, while she travels to Spain.  Along the way they both find love in neurotic partners suffering from Anhedonia.  Midway through the season they both flee the insane, joyless relationships and go back to New York with a newly-found sense of place in the world.  They rekindle their relationship, but before the season is over the relationship is again too.

Cross Between: Annie Hall, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Match Point.

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Director Vanity: Stars That Look Like Their Directors

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After seeing Leonardo DiCaprio’s haircut in Inception which looked all to familiar to Christopher Nolan’s iconic ‘do, it seemed fitting to investigate other notable director and star look-a-likes. It took a recent Entertainment Weekly cover of Robert Downey Jr. with a slicked back looking Jew-fro that couldn’t be ignored in comparison to Jon Favreau’s to finally make this a post. Here are some of the notable look-a-like director and star combos. Can you thing of any more!?

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton

Projects together: Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands

Look the most alike in: Edward Scissorhands

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Five movies to watch with a group

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As the summer months begin for college students across the country, one of the movies’ prime profit seasons is upon us.  People go out in droves to see the latest Hollywood blockbusters with their friends.  Those art-house films of the fall stay on the shelves, as people enjoy big-budget entertainments with their friends and family.  Here then are my five picks for 5 movies that are enhanced with entertainment when you watch them with other people. Whether they make you laugh, cry or drop your jaw in amazement, you will either enjoy these movies better with a group or be able to endure them better because you are with other people.

1.  Superbad- Perhaps the most defining comedy of this generation, the outrageously explicit comedy from director Greg Montolla stars a teen comedy ensemble on rank with that of The Breakfast Club.  The laughs are constant as three friends try to score booze for a party in order to get laid.  That may turn off many sophisticated, stuffy types, but more honesty is fleshed out over the course of these two hours about the modern teen condition than almost any other movie made for that audience.  Add in the iconic McLovin’, and you have a non-stop laugh riot that will endure for years to come.

2. Kill Bill Vol. 1- Though it’s hard to put this movie on a list without its equally excellent Vol. 2, you cannot deny the crowd-pleasing intensity of Quentin Tarantino’s genre-blended bloodbath.  From the beginning, you get one of the most well constructed action films of the past 20 years as well as a story simple enough to keep track of while still chatting with those around you.  If the gory showdown at the House of Blue Leaves doesn’t have everyone’s jaw dropped by the end of it, you’re probably hanging with the wrong crowd.

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Ten New Movie Icons

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As you learn more and more about the movies in America, a few faces stand synonymous with the silver screen.  Darth Vader, James Bond, Dorothy Gale, Dirty Harry- there are countless others I could name, but that’s not the point of this post.  What are the new screen icons, the characters that will join the ranks of those immortal celluloid figures 50 years down the road?  Here are my choices for 10 movie characters who burned their towering images into the silver screen.

1. Gollum- I choose this endearing figure from the Lord of the Rings trilogy not only because of the beguiling performance of Andy Serkis, but because Gollum also marks a transition in filmmaking.  If this is the digital age, it’s only because Serkis and Peter Jackson proved you could do it without sacrificing emotional intensity or credibility.  When Gollum talks to himself as his alter ego Smeagle, you believe in the new power of special effects.

2. The Bride- The blood-splattered angel of Quentin Tarantino’s gory genre exploitations is portrayed by Uma Thurman with both the suave of a genuine action star and the grit of a truly great actress.  The yellow jumpsuit-wearing, samurai sword-wielding incarnation will remain in movie watchers’ minds for years to come.

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If they were in television… Darren Aronofsky

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Director: Darren Aronofsky

Notable Films: Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Pi, and The Fountain.

Famous for: Unbearable honesty, emotionally destroyed and hopeless people, gritty surrealism, and intentionally ambiguous endings.

Hypothetical Premise: A cocaine-addicted woman is divorced by her extremely wealthy tycoon husband.  Since there was a pre-nup and she came from a poor and abusive family, she has nothing.  Over the course of the season, she goes from having everything to being a lonely, drug-ridden bum on the streets of Seattle.  Her husband makes sure she never gets a job or has any way to lift herself out of the disparity she’s in.  Then she meets a bouncer at a club, falls in love with him, but he can’t allow himself to love a crack addict.  If there is a second season, she would descend into madness and half of the series would appear to take place in the middle ages.

Cross Between: Requiem for a Dream, Breaking Bad, and The Wrestler.

Continue reading →

Summer Box Office Predictions

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1. Inception

Release date: July 16th

Plot summary: Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) is an agent who has the technology to enter the minds of business tycoons to retrieve their strategies and sell them to the highest bidder. But the mind is no safe place for Dom and his team who find themselves in a place where things can rearrange and people can have powers outside of reality. When a heist goes wrong, one CEO seeks to steal the technology from the thieves attacking him.

Why it will rule: Just a few short summers ago, Christopher Nolan delivered audiences The Dark Knight, a domestic and overseas smash that made $1 billion worldwide and nabbed the attention of critics and mainstream audiences alike. Nolan’s talent lies in making brilliant narratives into dark, compelling films that are popularized by their own quality. Add in Leonardo DiCaprio and his latest success with Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Warner Bros. incredible marketing team for dark blockbusters, it looks to be a hit. All that and the trailer proves that this is going to be Memento mind-bending with The Dark Knight effects squad and July release.

Why it will fail: With the exception of the Batman franchise, Nolan has yet to have a real big blockbuster. Without the branding, and without knowing what it is really about, audiences might turn down this smarter box office fair for more Transformers style blow em’ up blockbusters as entertainment. Also, this movie is missing the Heath Ledger effect.

Estimated box office: $100 million OW / $410 million Domestic

2. Toy Story 3

Release date: June 18th Continue reading →

A Few Movie Facts: Matt

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1.  I hated Pulp Fiction the first time I saw it, but for some reason watched it again a week later and loved it.  Now I watch movies I think are bad twice on occasion just to see if I’m missing out.  (Exception: Michael Bay movies or ones that are really bad.)

2. I saw The Dark Knight 7 times in the theater.  I’ve only watched it twice on DVD.

3. Like Luke, my favorite director is also Martin Scorsese.  The Coen Brothers and Francis Ford Coppola are close behind, though.

4. One movie that’s super acclaimed that I will never, ever watch is Bridge on the River Kwai. It just looks like something I could never sit through.

5.  Out of all the movies I’ve seen, I probably think about There Will Be Blood or No Country for Old Men more than any of them.  This is mostly because they are from the same year and thinking about one leads to the other, but also because they are two of the greatest movies made in the past 30 years.

6.  Brad Pitt is a good actor, but I really don’t like that many of his movies even though I’m a guy and I’m “supposed to.”

7. My two favorite actors are Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis.  If they ever did a movie together, the script wouldn’t even matter.

8. TV Shows like Mad Men and The Sopranos are better than 90% of the movies that come out these days.

9. I consider myself a huge movie buff, but I don’t want to sit around for hours and discuss the French New Wave or German Expressionism.  I’d rather watch the movies.

10.  My guilty pleasure movie is The Devil Wears Prada.  I know it doesn’t utilize anything revolutionary or tell a new kind of story, but come on.  Meryl Streep’s power to carry a movie has never been more prevalent.

A Few Movie Facts: Luke

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1. Of the AFI’s top 10 films of all-time, Raging Bull, Gone With the Wind and Lawrence of Arabia are the only films which I have not seen. The only films I think belongs in their top 10 list are Schindler’s List and Citizen Kane.

2. Some films I think they are missing out on are Children of Men, There Will Be Blood, Gangs of New York, Apocalypse Now, Kill Bill, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Pan’s Labyrinth and Taxi Driver. Man, I have a thing for dark films.

3. Favorite director is Martin Scorsese, hands down. Continue reading →