Archive for January, 2008

The Hitman and Die Hard 4.0

Seth Bullock doesn’t talk quite as much as Al Swearengen, but he has an intense gaze in addition to his fists of THUNDER! This is the TV Seth Bullock, of course. The real Seth Bullock could simply smother anyone who offended him with his titanic ‘tache.
So you know Timothy Olyphant from Deadwood, say movie [...]

House of Meetings

All authors have their obsessions that they return to in book after book. I haven’t read many of Martin Amis’s books, but his seem to be men, male violence and men’s misogyny. I read Money, which was full of chewy language, and a real ball. Then I read Yellow Dog, which was good, but I [...]

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death

The title seems to be giving away the game, but it isn’t…and neither is my telling you that it isn’t. Which isn’t telling you anything substantial, either.
The movie’s a little confusing, but it’s supposed to be. I think. And people still love it 35+ years down the line not just because it’s creepy but [...]

Travels in the Scriptorium

Before Paul Auster sits down to write a novel, he goes into a dark Brooklyn basement with a gang of his acolytes, all similarly beautiful, all dressed in black turtle-necks, and they gather in circle to chant: ‘post-modern, post-modern, post-, post-, modern, modern’, and thusly energised, he heads off to his study and churns out [...]

Cloverfield

Yes, OK. Pretty exciting. Heroism, sure, but no one’s saving the world. No one knows what’s going on. The monster looks great. Yes, OK, I’ll buy it.
I haven’t read a lot about his film, but I’m sure the internet’s chock full of complaints about excessive camcorder battery life, cell phone networks and high-rise structural integrity, [...]

The Prestige

I’ll admit to being duped by this movie’s major twist, however I felt slightly cheated. Scarlett Johansson’s English accent is all over the map - she seems to be from five different British counties, two of which don’t exist - and thus I was so intent on her imminent unmasking as an American that the [...]

A Slew of Sewage

Traveling for work is a ball-ache, in my estimation, and the further I go the more achey my balls. There’s a lot of dead time, a lot of waiting, and very little can fill the time satisfactorily. Read a good book, you say! Too tired. Catch up on your sleep! Not tired enough, or [...]

Serpico

I think the only time I’d seen this film was in the 1980’s on VHS, which means

it wasn’t in the correct aspect ratio and the colors were poor, and
I wasn’t sober

I enjoyed it far more this time. Pacino was years away from playing Pacino, and the NYC locations are wonderful.
Bad news: a ghastly and [...]

All The Pretty Horses

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is a bloody, gruesome book. It’s also totally amazing. Anyway, if you have read and/or seen No Country for Old Men and thought that was a bit much for you, don’t read more than first fifty pages or so of Blood Meridian.
McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses has its share of [...]

The Guardian

Kutcher and Costner, together at last. This film was as anticipated as the pairing of De Niro and Pacino in Heat, and in fact this film is very much like Heat, only wetter. It’s also kind of like Top Gun only gayer. And like An Officer and a Gentleman, only less Gere-ier. I was [...]