Posts Tagged reviews

No Other Gods Before Me: Belief in The Master

By • Aug 29th, 2012 • Category: watching

The Master asks big questions about what it means to believe or be believed. But does it deserve the reverence?



You Know, For Kids: Five Weird Things About Toy Story 3

By • Mar 10th, 2011 • Category: watching

Toy Story 3 is typical Pixar greatness. But a few odd details stand out to the adult viewer.



Too Smart for Stupid: Underestimating the Audience for Inception

By • Jul 15th, 2010 • Category: side notes

An undercurrent of condescension mars the early praise for the summer’s most anticipated blockbuster.



LA Film Fest 2010 Round-Up: The Good, The Great, and The Artsy

By • Jun 30th, 2010 • Category: watching

A brief overview of this year’s LA Film Fest selections, with a list of the top films that really floored me this year.



‘Big Fan’: ‘The Wrestler’ for the Rest of Us

By • Sep 1st, 2009 • Category: watching

Where The Ram’s story is about an addiction to life in the spotlight, Paul Aufiero’s is about a working class brand of loyalty that looks an awful lot like religion, and all the contradictions that entails.



Fool Me Once: Falling for the ‘The Brothers Bloom’

By • May 28th, 2009 • Category: watching

Rian Johnson’s follow-up to Brick works like a con itself: as long as there’s a part of us that’s willing to be taken on a ride, we’ll end up feeling like we came out ahead.



The Decemberists (and Their Army) Rage Against the Dying of the Album

By • Apr 11th, 2009 • Category: listening

‘The Hazards of Love’ may not have the instantly gratifying hooks the band is capable of, but as a complete listening experience it’s an impressive and satisfying work that gleefully defies convention.



Needy Nerd Syndrome: Loving ‘Watchmen’ For What It Is

By • Mar 9th, 2009 • Category: watching

‘Watchmen’ is a spectacular piece of genre film that only fails at the unreasonable task we set before it.



Reviewing the Reviews of Animal Collective’s ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’

By • Feb 4th, 2009 • Category: listening

When no one’s quite sure how exactly to describe your output, seeing how wildly different (and probably wrong) the responses are is part of the fun.