Thursday, June 18 2009
‘Have Gun - Will Travel’: Return to Fort Benjamin
With attempted justifications of military torture on our minds, Retro Remote heads back to the '50s TV Western to find a surprisingly tough moral stance on the U.S. military's destruction of human dignity and dehumanisation of 'enemy combatants'.
Tuesday, May 26 2009
Let the Right One In, But Only the Right One
Lindqvist’s book and Alfredson’s film adaptation both convey a sweet, dark version of puppy love. We don’t need the American remake.
Friday, May 8 2009
Gidget’s ‘Dear Diary—et al.’ – and All that May Imply
As things start getting a little steamy, Retro Remote 'sinks into nothingness' trying to mix Gidget and some serious film theory.
Monday, May 4 2009
Fighting the Flu
The mobilization of the military to control the spread of the current outbreak of a rare strain of the swine flu in Mexico City is right out of Stephen King’s The Stand.
Thursday, April 30 2009
Missing the Boat while ‘Fishing with John’ (Lurie)
Imagine a 'Seinfeld' episode on a boat with rods in Jerry and Kramer’s hands … you get the picture.
Tuesday, April 28 2009
‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’: Check, Please
I hate it when a film takes a brilliant literary work and turns it into what it thinks the literary work should be.
Thursday, April 9 2009
Looking Back at ‘Back to the Future’
The most irreverent, knowing, daring and hippest time travel story of all time has, inevitably and fittingly, become a time capsule.
Tuesday, April 7 2009
Waltzing with Wilco
As any experienced concert-goer knows, a lively audience can mean the difference between a lackluster event and a memorable night. Sometimes, it’s more important than the band's actual performance.
Tuesday, March 31 2009
Chok(ing) Onscreen and In Print
Whether served up on the page or on the screen, this is an intimate assessment of a twisted mother/son relationship with plenty of sardonic humor and scathing satire.
Friday, March 6 2009
‘The City’: The Most Seen Documentary
Steiner and Van Dyke have an eye for beauty even in misery, and their compositions make this part of the movie a pleasure to visit, even if we wouldn't want to live there.
Monday, March 2 2009
Woolf at the Door
Both Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's The Hours offer an illuminating look at the choices we make, the roles we play, and the hours that hinge our lives together.
Friday, February 6 2009
Conversing with Rudy Wurlitzer: ‘A Beaten-up Old Scribbler’
My conversations with Rudy Wurlitzer were not unlike a road journey itself with plenty of unplanned side trips along the way.
Friday, January 30 2009
A Perverted Perception of Movies
The success or failure of The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema hinges greatly on what one thinks of Slavoj Zizek's free-range associations on desire, blood, human waste, castration, and social control in films.
Thursday, January 29 2009
Metabots and Deconstructicons: Transformers Goes Postmodern
I am happy to report that after 25 years, the 'Transformers' franchise has finally gone postmodern… no thanks to 'Transformers Energon'.
Friday, January 23 2009
On the End of Every Fork
Our Daily Bread is a 21st century naked lunch in the true sense of what Burroughs meant, not a scattershot impressionistic sensory assault, but an eye-opener that can actually change the way one views the world.
Thursday, January 22 2009
Ken Russell at the BBC
Everything here is in achingly beautiful and sharply restored black and white, everything is intelligent and witty, everything is deeply felt -- everything is Russell.
Thursday, January 15 2009
Convergence Culture: the Many Faces of Hellboy
Different media means different Hellboys. Mike Mignola's versus Guillermo del Toro's.
Thursday, January 8 2009
Bret Hart: A Real Life in a Cartoon World
In a surreal world dedicated to a uniquely haphazard and comically inept breed of pretense, Bret Hart’s appeal was simple: he made everything seem 'real'.
Twilight Takeover
The film is a successful adaptation of the book not only because Pattinson is so talented and dreamy, but also because Hardwicke knows a thing or two about filming adolescents.
Thursday, December 4 2008
Nary a Word: ‘The Last Laugh’ and ‘The General’
The sound era added nothing thematically or tonally that wasn't already perfected in silent films.
