JURASSIC WORLD (2015, directed by Colin Trevorrow, 124 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC With Jurassic World, the thunder lizard franchise ties Jaws for Spielberg blockbusters that have stretched on now for four chapters. In 1987 this meant Jaws: The Revenge, where there was a half-hearted attempt to lure theatergoers back into the water with the star power of Lorraine Gary (Mrs. Brody in the original) and Michael Caine. Tepid splashing and mild interest ensued. Like Jaws: The Revenge, Jurassic World wants to hide its “Part 4” too but its sequel-y pedigree is too deep in its DNA […]
RIP: Chris Lee, Last Of The Aristrocratic Monsters
NEW YORK TIMES: Mr. Lee was 35 when his breakthrough film, Terence Fisher’s British horror movie “The Curse of Frankenstein,” was released in 1957. He played the creature. But it was a year later, when he played the title role in Mr. Fisher’s “Dracula,” that his cinematic identity became forever associated with Bram Stoker’s noble, ravenous vampire, who in Mr. Lee’s characterization exuded a certain lascivious sex appeal. When the film was reissued in 2007, Jeremy Dyson of The Guardian wrote, “Lee’s count is piercingly rapt, a fierce carnal evil burning behind his flashing eyes.” Even in his 70s […]
CINEMA: The Alpha Skaters
RELATED: Skaterdater, a 1965 American short film, was the first film on skateboarding. The film tells a story with no dialogue. The group of boy skaters are suddenly at a point when one of the boys sees a young girl, and becomes interested in her. This causes a rift with the other boys, who challenges him to a skating duel that goes down a hilly street. The young boy loses; however, he gets the girl, and shortly, a few other girls are seen and become interested in the boys, too. The surf rock-esque soundtrack was composed by Mike Curb […]
CINEMA: The Gym Class
RESULTS (2015, directed by Andrew Bujalski, 105 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Without name actors and with just the slenderest threads of plot, writer/director Andrew Bujalski has made four of the most smart and perceptive American comedies of our era. While his last, the 80s period piece Computer Chess, was his most ambitious, his latest, a small scale romantic comedy called Results, brings name actors into the mix for the first time. Just having Guy Pearce (unashamedly sporting an Australian accent) and Cobie Smulders from How I Met Your Mother starring in the film makes Results Bujalski’s most […]
Q&A: Talking Love & Mercy With Brian Wilson
Photo by MARK HANAUER via Rock Paper Photo BY JONATHAN VALANIA Brian Wilson is not a big talker. Music, glorious music, is his gift, not gab. He partnered with a lyricist for his greatest works — Tony Asher on Pet Sounds, Van Dyke Parks on Smile and Mike Love on “Good Vibrations.” He’s not one of those artists who like to use the celebrity interview format to deliver expansive ruminations about the world according to Brian Wilson. In fact, having interviewed him several times over the years, it is patently obvious that he sees talking to the press as a […]
CINEMA: To Live And Die In Twin Peaks
THE ADVOCATE: A Brooklyn, N.Y., filmmaker who previously told the story of a teen obsessed with porn is teaming up with the creator of the otherworldly film Tarnation to tell a strange story of a teen whose life revolved around the show Twin Peaks. But they need your help to do it.Travis Blue’s childhood in a small Washington town was turned upside down one day when he stumbled across a film crew shooting Northwest Passage, as the show was then called. Fascinated by the transformation of his hometown into a fictional world, Blue skipped school to watch the filming of […]
CINEMA: All Mods Con
LAMBERT & STAMP (2014, directed by James D. Cooper, 117 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The 1979 documentary The Kids Are Alright was one of the early classics of the rockumentary genre, a mad bash-up with the four characters who made up The Who. The film did a lot to burnish their artistic legend but years later it is apparent that the doc left out the guiding force that nurtured them into the band they would become: the visionary management of the duo known as Lambert & Stamp. Director James D. Cooper’s unusually intimate portrait of the band’s […]
CINEMA: The Wolf Pack
The six Angulo brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nicknamed “The Wolfpack,” they’re all exceedingly bright, are homeschooled, have no acquaintances outside their family and have practically never left their home. All they know of the outside world is gleaned from the films they watch obsessively and recreate meticulously, using elaborate homemade props and costumes. For years this has served as a productive creative outlet and a way to stave off loneliness – but after one of the brothers escapes the apartment (wearing a Michael Meyers […]
CINEMA: Truly Madly Amy
Just released movie poster for forthcoming Amy Winehouse doc, Amy, which opens in the U.S. on July 10th. DAILY BEAST: How Mr. Winehouse Exploited Amy VULTURE: The Complicated New Amy Winehouse Doc PREVIOUSLY: Amy Winehouse, Lady Who Sang The Blues, Dead At 27 PREVIOUSLY: BBC: Amy Winehouse Was Planning Jazz Super Group With ?uestlove Of The Roots PREVIOUSLY: The Lonesome Death Of Amy Winehouse PREVIOUSLY: Amy Winehouse Has Emphysema & Lump In Breast PREVIOUSLY: INDISUPUTABLE: Amy Winehouse Has Become The Most Persuasive Anti-Drug Ad We Have Ever Seen PREVIOUSLY: BACK IN BLACK: Amy Winehouse Cleans Up Nice PREVIOUSLY: AMY […]
CINEMA: Apocalypse Wow
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015, directed by George Miller, 120 minutes, Australia) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Seconds into the heavily-lauded Mad Max reboot my heart slowly started to sink. Staring over the desert landscape Max nonchalantly stomps on an animated Geico-like gekko and pops him into his mouth. Despite all the advance press declaring the fourth in this series was going to be an old-school, live stunt-driven film it quickly becomes apparent that just like George Lucas, George Miller had found irresistible the possibility of controlling every inch of the frame with CGI. This layer of artifice is […]
CINEMA: Killing Drake
Very impressive NYU student film about a college dude so obsessed with Drake that he goes Mark David Chapman on his idol to save him the ignominy of impending mediocrity. It’s a lot funnier than it sounds on paper. THE FADER: The premise of If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, a short film about an obsessive Drake fan, is cribbed from a Biggie track off of Life After Death, but also from a long legacy of fans-turned-killers: “It’s almost like you’re nobody until somebody kills you,” the film’s unnamed protagonist paraphrases, before preparing a plan to murder Drake so […]
CINEMA: Fear Of A Robot Planet
BY EMMA BAILEY What does it mean to be “human”? What is it that separates our consciousness from all the other creatures of Earth? Is human consciousness quantifiably superior to the beasts of the field? We could go back and forth on this topic all day, but you don’t see birds debating Derrida or solving long division problems, and yet there is something exquisite about the Zen-like simplicity of their existence. Why do humans insist on complicating things? In a blink of time’s eye, the dinosaurs became extinct, mammals came down from the trees, and mankind developed a unique […]
CINEMA: High Anxiety
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (2014, directed by Olivier Assayas, 124 minutes, France) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Where has the time gone? Gazing up at the endlessly beguiling Juliette Binoche I realized it has been over 30 years that she has graced the screen as various intelligent and vulnerable women and yet in each role there was a sense we are meeting her anew. Her latest film, Olivier (Irma Vep, Carlos) Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria reflects on Binoche’s age and sensitivity by teaming her with a pair of acclaimed young American actresses, Twilight’s Kristen Stewart and the cute round-faced […]