PROMETHEUS (2012, directed by Ridley Scott, 124 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSIRK How Ridley Scott could’ve stayed away from sci-fi all these years is beyond me. The 75-year-old director has had successes over the years, from his Oscar-winning Gladiator and his influential war flick Black Hawk Down, but nothing has stoked the eternal interest 1979’s Alien and 1982’s Blade Runner continue to enjoy. With Prometheus, Scott returns not just to sci-fi but to his Alien franchise, which since its James Cameron-directed sequel in 1986 has floundered in the hands of mostly well-meaning directors who have failed to make something out […]
CINEMA: Here’s Your Pope, What’s Your Hurry?
We Have a Pope (Habemus Papum) (Dir. by Nanni Moretti, 2011, Italian, 102 minutes) The latest film by independent Italian Director Nanni Moretti, We Have a Pope, is a lightweight farce that pokes fun at the isolated and archaic ways of the Roman Catholic Church but never manages to really open a crack to let the light of day shine on any of the more serious issues facing the institution in the modern world. The film opens with the venerable College of Cardinals filing quietly past the press to sequester themselves in conclave and elect a new Pontiff. During the […]
CINEMA: Not Sucking In The 70s
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I couldn’t be more delighted than to speak this Saturday June 2nd at an all-day event at the Princeton Public Library while screening a quartet of politically-themed films from Hollywood in the 1970s. The program was selected by a high school student from the Princeton area and is billed as “70s Cinema Fest For Teens” Much of my affection for these films stems from the fact that I was a cinema-obsessed teen when these film were first released. It was their seriousness of purpose that convinced me that “watching movies” could be more than […]
OUR PRAYERS ANSWERED: Philly Opening Of The New Wes Anderson Movie Moved Up To June 8th
FRESH AIR Director Wes Anderson has many credits to his name — The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, Bottle Rocket and Fantastic Mr. Fox among them — but Moonrise Kingdom is his first film to open the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Starring Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Bruce Willis and Edward Norton, the quirky independent picture tells the story of a 12-year-old girl and boy who fall in love and then make a pact to run off into the woods together. Anderson tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that the movie, set on a remote (and fictional) island off the coast of New England, is what he calls “a memory of a fantasy.” “I […]
CINEMA: The Creation Records Creation Myth
THE GUARDIAN: There’s one great stroke of genius to Upside Down, Danny O’Connor’s chronicle of the birth, glory years and demise of mouthy mogul Alan McGee’s iconic record label. It’s the lack of a voiceover: O’Connor eschews traditional narration in favour of nuggets of rock’n’roll wisdom, spoken by ageing Irish DJ, music guru and McGee’s Death Disco co-conspirator BP Fallon (“purple-browed beep” in T Rex’s Telegram Sam). Fallon is shot in monochrome and beamed onto a grainy 50s TV set – a move that ensures the film stays in tune with the vibe of the bands Creation championed: amongst […]
CINEMA: Empire Burlesque
THE DICTATOR (2012, directed by Larry Charles, 83 minutes, U.S.) GOD BLESS AMERICA (2011. directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, 100 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC In Hollywood, no talent is too immense to be dragged to its knees for some mundane, sure-fire junk. After watching Ricky Gervais follow-up his classic TV work to labor in some distressingly formulaic comedies, we now have the immensely-gifted Sasha Baron Cohen starring in…a rom-com? After the genre-expanding fictional docu-comedies Borat and Bruno, Cohen’s fully-scripted new feature The Dictator finds the comic slipping from culture-jamming satirist to mere goofball comedian. The distance from […]
CINEMA: Vampire Weekend
DARK SHADOWS (2012, directed by Tim Burton, 113 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Eyebrows were raised when it was announced that Johnny Depp would be fulfilling a life-long dream by portraying Barnabas Collins in a film version of the late 60’s soap opera Dark Shadows directed by his longtime collaborator Tim Burton. The hypnotically-turgid Gothic soap opera is loaded with nostalgic appeal to baby boomers, who were a little aghast when the trailer arrived and revealed that Burton and Depp had turned the drama into an Addams Family-style comedy. Resigned to the fact the source of my […]
CINEMA: Supercallifragilistic
THE AVENGERS (2012, directed by Joss Whedon, 142 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Like an asteroid headed straight at earth, the unavoidable, unstoppable Avengers movie has finally made impact and resistance is futile. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D has been making post-credit appearances in the Marvel super hero films for four years now, hinting at the arrival of the all-star super hero team. The Avengers is meant to top all the previous Marvel blockbusters of the past decade and it does that with the sheer scope of the frenzied destruction that, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk […]
CINEMA: The Unkown Soldiers Of 20th Century Pop
BY JONATHAN VALANIA A little known fact outside of musician circles is that the instrumental tracks of many of the most beloved and iconic pop songs of the 1960s — The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me,” The Mamas & Papas’ “California Dreamin’,” The Monkees’ “Mary Mary,” Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas,” The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night,” Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” to name but a few — were not performed by the artists credited. […]
CINEMA: The Craven
THE RAVEN (2012, directed by James McTeigue, 110 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK At one point in the silly speculative fiction fantasy that is The Raven, a character is describing the town drunk Edgar Allan Poe. When he is asked about what kind of writing Poe contributes to the newspaper he replies, “Criticism, you know the easy kind.” Critics learn to take such passing jibes in stride, but you can see why The Raven’s writers are so touchy on the subject, at every turn their film is preposterous in ways sure to wake the film critic in everyone. Not that […]
CINEMA: Stooges, Bullies And Monsters
CABIN IN THE WOODS (2011, directed by Drew Goddard, 105 minutes, U.S.) BULLY (2012, directed by Lee Hirsch, 90 minutes, U.S.) THE THREE STOOGES (2012, directed by Bobby & Peter Farrelly, 92 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The buzz has been reverberating for a while about Cabin in the Woods, the rare literate, fresh take on the horror genre, and one that is rife with surprises. We don’t need to discuss those surprises to discuss the film, but from the opening scenes we know that the five young college students (two couples and a goofy sidekick) who are […]
CINEMA: The Anchorman Cometh, Again
WASHINGTON POST: Will Ferrell, dressed as the mustachioed newsman Ron Burgundy, made a surprise appearance on “Conan” Wednesday night to make dirty jokes, play the flute and tell O’Brien he looks awful. (“You look like someone put a bright red fright wig on a skeleton and chucked it out of a helicopter.”) Oh — he also announced that a sequel to “Anchorman” is in the works. Few details are available. But, according to the Associated Press, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell are expected to return, as are director Adam McKay and producer Judd Apatow. Deadline reports that David Koechner is […]
CINEMA: Game Changer
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Better than a stuffy old press screening, I experienced the full dystopian impact of the Hunger Games by attending the Thursday night midnight debut of the anxiously-awaited adaptation of the juvenile fiction favorite. Even more than the movie itself, the horrendous pre-show advertising made me feel that I’m living in some Sci-Fi author’s nauseous future with ads encouraging impressionable young audiences to join the Marines and march proudly into a desert dust storm, watch mean-spirited TV comedies, and, in a seemingly counter-productive move for theaters, endless commercials inviting the assembled crowd to stay at home […]