By Matt Zoller Seitz_____________________________________Released 20 years ago this month, Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing was one of the most controversial films of its time. It was praised in many quarters for its script, direction, photography, acting and music, and singled out by some prominent critics as a rich and ...
James Cagney and company, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Michael Curtiz, 1942
By Michael Adams1. If you thought that “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” couldn’t be any dumber, then hold your breath and check your brain cells at the door for this: “Transmorphers: Fall of Man.” Yes, it’s the long-awaited sequel to “Transmorphers” from those geniuses at the Asylum! Before you mock ...
When conservatives complain, as they often do, that pop culture is dominated by liberals, lefties and all sorts of eco-nuts, I always feel like responding by saying -- well, how do conservatives ever expect to make a dent if they always seem hostile to virtually every new artist trend or ...
Here's Brad Pitt Softbank 500, another Japanese commercial directed by Spike Jonze.
I had planned on taking the day off from the Bloggery today, but I was drawn in by the odd attention being paid to some new photos of Dakota Fanning on the set of the girl group biopic The Runaways. I guess it fits to end the week with another ...
"That's not how I'm wired! That's not how I'm wired to operate! ... The world needs more Trigs, not fewer."
Settle down, BAM. You just rocked our worlds with the first BAMcinemaFEST and now you’re already onto the next festival? I guess that’s how things are done in Brooklyn. Tonight brings the full-fledged kick-off of the fifth annual Afro-Punk Festival, which, in addition to outdoor concerts, features five days of ...
Speaking of embattled auteurs, David Poland asks more questions about Sony pulling the plug on Moneyball and what it means. So does Jeffrey Wells. I've also heard that Soderbergh wanted to make a responsibly budgeted commercial movie with MLB approval, and that Sony was backing James Brooks' baseball movie over ...
By Matt Zoller Seitz______________________________This is the second in a five-part series of Moving Image Source video essays on Michael Mann, whose new film, Public Enemies, opens July 1. Part 2 will be posted on Friday, with parts 3, 4, and 5 to follow next week. To read a transcript of ...
For most of the 1960s, Hollywood was the last place you'd go to find the pulse of the pop culture. Movie attendance had reached all-time lows. The studios were crumbling -- most film lots were either up for sale, being rented out or looked like decaying junkyards. The movies were so ...
As I head off for an unplugged holiday weekend--to a pal's Idyllwild hideaway with no wifi (thanks Lili)--here are some weekend links. We will see how Michael Mann's Public Enemies fares: usually, if the highbrow critics on Metacritic grant a movie a 71 ranking and the masses at ...
Aiding LAPD and DEA in determining if the singer died from a drug overdose illegally prescribed by his medical team.By Frank SwertlowCalifornia Attorney General Jerry Brown has joined forces with investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency looking into the growing possibility that Michael ...
As many of you might have seen in IndieWire yesterday, I've decided to move on to new things. In the spirit of open communication that is the web now, I'm posting the info I sent my friends and colleagues on Friday announcing my departure.After five years leading NVR on the ...
Not that we're ever overtly patriotic here on GreenCine, but certainly the 4th of July conjures up both a fondness for things Americana and thoughts (okay, brief thoughts) about our founding fathers. Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone's dated but still...
Once again channeling the spirit of revolution this holiday weekend BAMCinematek, hot off its inaugural BAMCinemaFEST, hosts the fifth annual Afro-Punk Festival, which will feature some filmmakers familiar to Filmmaker Magazine readers. Bookending the repertory film portion of the event, which also encompasses concerts, a skate park and a closing ...
Oh glorious day. I arrive at Karlovy Vary’s aptly named Hotel Petr to find not only my baggage, but a complimentary beer and the long lost ability to smoke in my hotel room. I will soon be clean, properly dressed and intoxicated to ring in my first night at this ...
The outspoken director of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, is not best known for being the soul of discretion. Here's my pick of his most memorable quotesMichael Bay really ought to be preserved for posterity. Not for his movies, which - almost universally - are mindless, loud trash. And not ...
If you’re not interested in watching what the theaters have to offer this weekend, or you’re maxed-out on your home video options and tired of the endless Michael Jackson coverage, here are some Cinetic films to rent or buy online: Bob Odenkirk’s comedy Melvin Goes To Dinner, which is truly ...
French romantic comedies are the art-house import equivalent of pimped-out Hollywood blockbusters. Both appeal to a wide and diffuse target audience — moderately cultured bourgeois and pop thrill seekers — and both are basically critic-proof. Where Michael Bay obliterates scrutiny with fireballs and shiny screeching machinery, French comedies gently neutralize ...
Excerpts from the director's diaries of his arduous shoot on Fitzcarraldo remind us of just how close he came to the heart of darkness"Caracas, 21 June 1979: No one came to meet me. My passport was confiscated immediately because I had no visa." So began the most famous trial of ...
