While I prefer to judge a film on its own merit, nothing exists in a vacuum. An artist’s work is always weighed against their past efforts or, in the case of Pixar, against the reputation of the studio. And indeed, no review of The Good Dinosaur will print without comparing it to Inside Out. Nor […]
The Coens and Cinematic Convention
To a person raised by Amish wolves deep in the oceans of Europa, much of the appeal of the films of the brothers Coen would make little sense. In making their films, the Coens work off of established genre conventions, twisting and inverting them into strange new forms. In doing so, the Coens operate under […]
Promised Land
When I saw the first TV spots for Promised Land back in late November, I mostly ignored the actual content of the advertisement in favor of the text that ran right after the title. It looked like this: That list of names got me all hot and bothered. Notoriously hit-or-miss director Gus Van Sant (Good […]
Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson has a special place in my heart. Back in 2007, during one of the many times my mother sat me down to watch some obscure film she’d heard about, she popped in a film that sounded incredibly drab to my younger self entitled The Darjeeling Limited. To my surprise, ninety-one minutes later, a broad smile had crept […]
