The PopMatters Film Blog 2009-12-09T13:45:23Z Copyright (c) 2009, PopMatters.com ExpressionEngine tag:popmatters.com-short-ends-and-leader,2009:12:09 tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.117530 2009-12-09T02:30:27Z 2009-12-09T02:30:27Z Bill Gibron In an important scene from the 1985 dramedy Educating Rita, the title character, a working class London gal trying to succeed at university, discusses a recent family outing with her... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.117470 2009-12-07T21:20:07Z 2009-12-07T21:20:07Z Bill Gibron You know you're in awards season trouble when 'Star Trek' continues to haunt your Top Ten. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.117396 2009-12-06T21:32:23Z 2009-12-06T21:32:23Z Bill Gibron In the long standing debate between movies as merchandise and film as art, the sex comedy usually get laughed out of the room - and not for the reasons you think. Humor has literally nothing to do... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.117318 2009-12-05T06:40:14Z 2009-12-05T06:40:14Z Bill Gibron It's all about immersion. It's all about historical context and accuracy. It's all about character and the defiant need to stay true to same. And in the end, it's about the past, about the United... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.117276 2009-12-04T06:25:28Z 2009-12-04T06:25:28Z Bill Gibron In this edition, soundtracks for 17 Again, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Bright Star, Red Cliff, Surrogates, and The Coen Brothers' A Serious Man ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.117101 2009-12-02T16:00:00Z 2009-12-02T16:00:00Z Bill Gibron Guy Ritchie can give you a headache. No, not with his '70s post-modernism mixed with unhealthy doses of MTV-schooled stylization. No, not even with his cockney rhyming, slang happy cast of... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.117037 2009-12-01T17:23:39Z 2009-12-01T17:23:39Z Bill Gibron Last time around, we compared this brilliant BBC detective series (with sophisticated sci-fi overtones) to David Fincher's equally excellent masterwork Zodiac - and the reasons still remain... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116962 2009-12-01T02:00:41Z 2009-12-01T02:00:41Z James De Roxtra With 2009's awards season about to ignite, it is time to analyze the ups and down of the recent rule changes, including what truly benefits from the expansion of Best Picture nominees and how this affects representation of cinematic excellence. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116977 2009-11-30T20:38:01Z 2009-11-30T20:38:01Z Bill Gibron In celebration of tomorrow's DVD and Blu-ray release of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (and the similarly themed bonus featurette - "Historical Confessions: Famous Last Words"), SE&L has selected some of its favorite, and most fascinating, individual and entertainment elegies. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.114905 2009-11-29T11:00:02Z 2009-11-29T11:00:02Z Diepiriye Kuku No, gays won’t have to march- there are plenty more ways for heroes to come out to battle. What if lynching had gone viral? Remember that Dr. King had no iPhone, hence the distance between Montgomery and Atlanta was enormous, but dwarfed by now the Internet (not to mention I-85). ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116868 2009-11-28T21:30:34Z 2009-11-28T21:30:34Z Bill Gibron By the mid '70s, Australian cinema was desperate for an identity. It had bathed in the beauty of faux Golden Era Hollywood mimicry and wallowed in the excess of easily achieved grindhouse... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116825 2009-11-28T09:18:57Z 2009-11-28T09:18:57Z Bill Gibron Aiden Dillard must be Harry Novak's bastard love child. Either that or he's obviously spent time shoveling sawdust for Dave Friedman on the carnival circuit. If there hadn't already been an... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116050 2009-11-27T19:00:00Z 2009-11-27T19:00:00Z Bill Gibron It should have been the blockbuster battle royale of 2009, a cinematic smackdown between two toy-based action adventure popcorn epics. One the one side was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116815 2009-11-27T05:00:00Z 2009-11-27T05:00:00Z Bill Gibron It was the story that Judd Apatow always wanted to tell. It was the growing pains of a youth spent in pursuit of comedic glory, and a reality bitterly dejected by the lack of success in same. It was... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116763 2009-11-26T02:45:58Z 2009-11-26T02:45:58Z Bill Gibron Roald Dahl has always been the anti-Dr. Seuss. For all the lessons illustrated and celebrated by the late Theodor Geisel, his UK compatriot took a much darker and demented trek. Like the Brothers... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116762 2009-11-25T21:42:40Z 2009-11-25T21:42:40Z Bill Gibron They are known as "gorehounds" - genre film fans who enjoy the life-fluid lasciviousness of movies drenched in blood and guts. For this discerning demographic, no narrative is complete without... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116761 2009-11-25T15:00:52Z 2009-11-25T15:00:52Z Bill Gibron So this is how the world ends…not with a whimper (though there is some of that)…not with a bang (though a rather monstrous one is inferred). No, the world ends with rampant cannibalism,... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116720 2009-11-24T20:11:00Z 2009-11-24T20:11:00Z Meghan Lewit Is Twilight backlash a result of its predominantly female fan base? ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116468 2009-11-24T04:00:31Z 2009-11-24T04:00:31Z Bill Gibron Warning: Massive Spoilers Ahead ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116614 2009-11-21T16:00:20Z 2009-11-21T16:00:20Z Valerie C. Gilbert When it comes to Hollywood and representation of African-American women, I propose that the present decade might be viewed as beginning with Monster’s Ball (2001) and ending with... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116593 2009-11-20T21:30:13Z 2009-11-20T21:30:13Z Bill Gibron There is nothing worse than child abuse of any kind - physical, psychological, sexual. It's a demonstration of power perverted, of adults taking advantage of impressionable and vulnerable minors in... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116539 2009-11-19T22:15:02Z 2009-11-19T22:15:02Z Bill Gibron Kevin Smith is the Richard Pryor of lo-fi independent cinema. No one in modern moviemaking works better "blue". He is a sorcerer of scatology, a God of the dick and fart joke. And yet, just like the... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.115558 2009-11-19T20:15:12Z 2009-11-19T20:15:12Z Diepiriye Kuku See A Patch of Blue (1965), staring Sidney Poitier who by that time was already a seasoned actor. Recall that Poitier only two years earlier, he was the first Black actor to win an academy... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116449 2009-11-18T23:00:00Z 2009-11-18T23:00:00Z Bill Gibron It holds too many titles to be totally beholden to just one: most popular movie of all time (adjusted dollars or straight admissions, of course); greatest example of classic Hollywood filmmaking... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116356 2009-11-18T02:00:15Z 2009-11-18T02:00:15Z Bill Gibron Who would have thought it? Marla Singer is the sanest, most honest person in the entire piece. Even through all her hypochondria and emotional rollercoasterism, she puts the cracked combination of... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116352 2009-11-16T23:19:50Z 2009-11-16T23:19:50Z Bill Gibron There is nothing in this world that could get me to sit through this week's screening of The Twilight Saga: New Moon. My last experience with the faux fright franchise, a sorry excuse for... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116284 2009-11-15T05:33:32Z 2009-11-15T05:33:32Z Bill Gibron All Brüno has is its hit or miss nature, and for the most part, the targets are too easy and often sideswiped instead of struck head on. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116239 2009-11-13T20:00:04Z 2009-11-13T20:00:04Z Bill Gibron Instead of being the kind of bracing, insightful docudrama that sheds light on a subject few outside the UK know about, what we wind up with is a bloated effort that tries to be everything to everyone -- coming of age comedy, pop art period piece, political satire, crafty character study, ensemble romp, and/or hilarious history lesson. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.116210 2009-11-13T07:41:19Z 2009-11-13T07:41:19Z Bill Gibron Come on, what did you expect? Logical plotting? Complex, three dimensional characters? Some shred of recognizable scientific or technological reality? Seriously? This is Roland Emmerich we're talking... ]]>