Movie Review: Django Unchained
2012 has been a year of surprises for me. I’m known to be pretty anti-Nolan, and yet I enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises. Likewise, and I know this sounds like heresy, it has been a long time – probably since Pulp Fiction - since I walked out of a Tarantino film content with what I had just seen. Nevertheless, just … Read more
Academia: Get the Right Message
An academic paper I wrote on how Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Tony Kaye’s American History X deliver very ambiguous messages about race. Like Tony Kaye’s American History X which hit the big screen some nine years later, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing is a sprawling commentary on race and race relations that follows a community living in constant … Read more
Movie Review: Searching for Sugar Man
My father is a white South African who moved to the United States around 20 years ago. Because of him, I grew up listening to Sixto Rodriguez’s album Cold Fact on loop for most of my childhood. While most of the artist’s very adult metaphors were lost on me as a kid, I was nevertheless … Read more
Op-Ed: Should You See The Hobbit at 48 FPS?
I had the good fortune to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at the midnight premiere in 48 frames per second. So as a follow-up to Ari’s review of the 2D 24 frames per second version of the film, and to my post from earlier this year about the negative CinemaCon reaction the first screening of the footage, here is a … Read more
Movie Review: Cloud Atlas (Guest Post)
After seeing Cloud Atlas, I completely understood why it received such mixed reviews from critics. From the moment the film opens, it is immediately apparent that it is no ordinary Hollywood story. But does the risk of “uniqueness” make or break the film? Personally, I believe it was a brilliant choice. I can definitely say audiences … Read more
Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Guest Post)
It’s been nine years since The Return of the King. Nine long years filled with lawsuits, lost directors, politics, and health issues all conspiring to keep The Hobbit from being made. And now, finally, Peter Jackson’s done it: it’s time to return to Middle-Earth. But after all these years, after all these delays, and after … Read more
Movie Review: Lincoln
Lincoln could have been a terrible film. Steven Spielberg has little left to prove at this point, having directed some of the very best genre films ever made. As if to confirm my fears about the film, the first trailer for Lincoln sported cheesy melodramatic dialogue hammed up by a boring stock orchestral track. Sitting down at … Read more
