Amos Posner

About Amos Posner

A born and raised New Yorker with an unhealthy fondness for both Hepburns, Amos Posner attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, he studied film and worked for The Daily Cardinal, where he reviewed over 100 movies and won a Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for best general column writing in his region. Returned to Manhattan, Amos works as a script reader in New York’s independent film scene and spends most of his time waiting for John Cusack to return to making good movies.

Columns

Rewarding the Oscar Also-Rans

By Amos Posner

With the Academy's 'big dance' on the horizon, it's time to recognize those motion pictures and performances overlooked by Oscar's self-serving system of artistic determination. [23 February 2007]

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The Invincible Stubbornness of Judi Dench

By Amos Posner

Some consider her one of the grand dames of modern motion picture acting. But when it comes to her actual performances, this celebrated Oscar winner is decidedly one note. [7 February 2007]

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Analingus and the Borat Antidote for Cultural Thin Skin

By Amos Posner

He's the most polarizing figure in recent pop culture history, and our mainstream movie maven is here to tell us why that's a good thing - for comedy and for society. [15 November 2006]

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The Great Wait for Oscar Bait

By Amos Posner

If there's anything to be learned from a review of the year so far, it's that 2006 will either go down as a terrible movie year or a tremendously back-loaded one. [16 October 2006]

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Towering Concerns

By Amos Posner

It's admirable that people want our culture to strive for relevance and depth in its filmmaking and film watching, but our desperate grasping for real world ideals has dissolved our sense of cinematic values. [13 September 2006]

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Hollywood’s Boring, Boring, Blockbuster Summer

By Amos Posner

Think Summer of 2006's popcorn movies have been more bust than boffo? You're not alone, according to our resident mainstream movie maven. [25 July 2006]

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The Battle for M. Night Shyamalan’s Artistic Soul

By Amos Posner

As the weather heats up outside, all summer blockbuster eyes will be on M. Night Shyamalan's latest epic of the ethereal. But the big question is, Will it be a return to form? Or the final nail in his creative coffin? [13 June 2006]

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The Mid-Level Movie Star’s Guide to Staying That Way

By Amos Posner

Tired of striving for the A-List and failing? This month's insider look at the industry offers up seven lessons guaranteed to help the overreaching actor maintain his b-level mediocrity. [12 April 2006]

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The Academy NIT

By Amos Posner

Year in and year out, Oscar typically misses some noteworthy candidates for recognition. Stale Popcorn offers its list of overlooked gems in this annual March 'madness'. [1 March 2006]

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Ladies’ Plight

By Amos Posner

What's most notable about superstars in the last decade is not that there are so few of them. It's that none of them have been female. Of Hollywood's elite women, several have found success largely in the shadows of men. [23 January 2006]

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How Chris Tucker Made a Fortune in Films Without Making Movies

By Amos Posner

Want a sure-fire way to a $20 million payday? Just follow the Chris Tucker example of salary security: don't make a movie for five years. [13 December 2005]

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Trumping the Box Office Slump

By Amos Posner

Posner has some advice for all those suits who believe that the current box office slump is centered around bad films or the burgeoning sell-through schism of DVD: 'It's the marketing, stupid!' [15 November 2005]

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Intervening Oliver Stone

By Amos Posner

Oliver Stone is in trouble, and its up to Posner and his pals to see him through this latest creative crisis, or else all might be lost for the once mighty Oscar winning moviemaker. [19 October 2005]

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The Case for Tom Cruise

By Amos Posner

If we are indeed witnessing the death rattle of Cruise's career, then perhaps it's time to give him some credit for what it was that made his stardom so impenetrable for so long. [13 September 2005]

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Mr. Cent Goes to Hollywood

By Amos Posner

To be fair, with musicals out of vogue, rappers as a group are more intrinsically prepared to handle movie roles than other pop stars. [8 August 2005]

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Fighting Hollywood’s Super-Relapse

By Amos Posner

Director-driven fare is back in Hollywood vogue, and one of the great joys of this new auteurist era is watching it spill into comic book adaptations. [11 July 2005]

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Hollywood’s Battle with Depression

By Amos Posner

It's war to see who really came to America's rescue after the big crash of '29. And the cinematic suspects are a boxer, a ghost, and a horse... of course. [6 June 2005]

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Reviews

Griffin & Phoenix

By Amos Posner

It’s hard to tell whether first-time director Ed Stone set out to make the saddest romantic-comedy of all time or to see how much comic relief could be crammed into a maudlin drama. [4 December 2007]