Friday, April 26 2013
Manning Up in ‘Pain & Gain’
The kidnappers are caught up in a mutual druggy, aspirational haze: when any one of them feels apprehensive, the nearest buddy encourages him to "get a pump", as they lose themselves in frenzy of bicep-curling and self-distraction.
Tuesday, December 6 2011
The Beauty and the Horror: Peter Jackson’s King Kong - Part 2
Jackson's film is as unwieldy and difficult as it is gripping and moving, expanding upon the exotic spectacle of the original while simultaneously steering the tale into the realm of tragic lament.
Thursday, December 1 2011
The Beauty and the Horror: Peter Jackson’s King Kong - Part 1
This film is keenly aware of the myriad meanings embedded in its cinematic myth and sets about re-contextualizing and commenting upon the implied politics while offering extravagant thrills and tragic, classic romance.
Tuesday, November 29 2011
Money, Sex, and Power: Contemporary Adaptations in John Guillermin’s King Kong
The 1976 King Kong updates this modern myth’s meanings for a vastly different social, economic, and cultural milieu, but it does so with a leaden obviousness that undermines its conclusions.
Monday, November 28 2011
From Spectacle to Elegy: The Cinematic Myth of King Kong
Like many of the Hollywood blockbusters that followed in its footsteps, King Kong was a barometer for its troubled times, a clear crystallization of many lurking social anxieties in Depression-era America.
Wednesday, August 24 2011
‘Entourage: The Complete Seventh Season’: What the Eagles Warned You About
The players of Entourage wield words like weapons, their acidic bon mots the equivalent of machine gun fire.
Thursday, May 26 2011
Great Entrance, Unca Scrooge: Warren Spector Finds Richness in DuckTales
It's not so much that Warren Spector, the visionary behind Epic Mickey and the legendary Deus Ex, conforms to the genius of DuckTales' generic conventions--it's that he evolves them.
Tuesday, May 10 2011
Really, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’
What was something of a self-indulgent escapade in the UK version takes on far more resonance and dramatic and cultural relevance in the US version.
Thursday, December 3 2009
Little Women: Brilliant Book, Flawed Film
A scene shows Ryder blissfully tying up the manuscript and putting a rose under the string. That's rather like what Armstrong and the screenwriters did to the film: tied it up neatly with a pretty flower.
