Where Are the Women? Whiplash
If a movie must have a male protagonist and a male villain, fine. But must it also pretend that women barely exist in the world at all? [This post is not behind the paywall.]
JK Simmons
Whiplash movie review: music as a savage beast
If you didn’t think music could involve actual blood, sweat, and tears, this breathtakingly visceral coming-of-artistic-age drama will set you straight.
AWFJ 2014 award winners
The Alliance of Women Film Journalists is one of the orgs for which I help choose year-end best-ofs.
Men, Women & Children movie review (London Film Festival)
Jason Reitman is way too young to have produced a work of such fuddy-duddy handwringing over These Kids (And Adults) Today and how we play with our e-toys.
The Good Doctor (trailer)
Orlando Bloom as a creepy obsessive stalkerish doctor. The bad haircut shoulda been a giveaway.
Contraband (review)
It’s a good thing Mark Wahlberg is so effortlessly charming: he keeps this rather generic heist thriller rolling along as smoothly as it does.
Extract (review)
Mike Judge doesn’t do anything for no reason, but there’s a depressing sense of aimlessness, or not-knowing-what-he-wants-to-say-ishness to *Extract8 that is extra disappointing coming from this filmmaker, who has been so pointed and so clever up till now.
Burn After Reading movie review: stupid power
I think maybe I’ve figured out how Joel and Ethan Coen do it. How they move so effortlessly from comedy to drama, from fluffy to forceful, from silly to solemn. It’s that they don’t think about tone or genre, at least not at the beginning: they just think about a character, and let him have his lead, and see where he takes them.
totally quotable: best. lines. ever, 2004 edition
Here, in one place, the most quotable movie lines of the year 2004. They’re not ranked — they’re all great. [Warning: May contain spoilers.] [click here for the funniest bad snippets of dialogue from 2004] “Only people from the Bronx care about the Oscars.” –Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth), Beyond the Sea “I’ve never seen a … more…
