How does Michaela Owens love the Lonely Island? Let her count the ways in this ode to the sublime silliness of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Shaffer’s comedy trio. The Lonely Island is not a comedy group I should like. Their jokes can push the boundaries of vulgarity and good taste, with gags that… Read more »
I watched Frances Ha at the wrong time in my life; I was too young to quite get the character. I didn’t understand her, why she wasn’t aware of the incredibly embarrassing things she was saying, why she went to Paris, and why she couldn’t accept the strain in her relationship with her friend Sophie…. Read more »
What ever happened to George Stevens? The director of such classic Hollywood titles as Swing Time (1936), The More the Merrier (1943), A Place in the Sun (1951), and Shane (1953), Stevens was one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of his day, winning the Academy Award for Best Director on two separate occasions. These days,… Read more »
“The western is always the same, which gives the director tremendous freedom,” Jean Renoir, a director who never made a western, once opined. In this regard, the classical American western film, which reached its fullest peak of maturity and creativity in the 1950s, represents one of the greatest playgrounds that cinema was ever offered. Many… Read more »
It is an inescapable fact that we don’t deserve Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Separately, together, it doesn’t matter. They were just too beautiful, too miraculous, too good. By the time I laid eyes on their second collaboration, Bringing Up Baby, in high school, I was already head over heels for Kate and Cary, but… Read more »
When A24 distributed writer-director Paul Schrader’s film First Reformed (2017), there was talk that it would be the last film he ever made. Schrader had recently turned 70. The critical and financial success of First Reformed — complete with Schrader’s first-ever Academy Award nomination for its screenplay — would have made it a high note… Read more »