I’ve been hitting the ol’ theaters hard this month, and I’ve found most of these movies to be decidedly satisfactory. I didn’t ‘love’ any of these, but I would say that if you’re interested in seeing them, you’ll probably enjoy them:
Hannah Arendt (2012) | Dir. Margarethe von Trotta | 113 min.
Continue reading 4 Halfway Decent Movies In Theaters Now (Hannah Arendt, Frances Ha, The Bling Ring, Berberian Sound Studio)
Future generations won’t know the joy of driving to a Blockbuster and picking out a rental (or rentals) for the weekend. It was an inconvenient life, but nostalgia erases that. Waxing romantic on it now makes me exhale in deep wistful wonder, my heart full of bliss. Video stores fostered my burgeoning cinephilia in the late nineties, and provided some of the best memories of my life.
But Netflix has changed all that, and I say good riddance. All Netflix really does is add convenience to the already established video store mechanism. Now you don’t even have to leave the house. You can snuggle on the couch with your lover and your Roku box and browse what’s currently streaming (and I suspect, in a decade or so, everything will be).
Continue reading Nights On Netflix: A Journey Through The Aisles Of Our Friendly Neighborhood Internet Video Store
If you’re a fan of us here at Smug Film, you already know John D’Amico. We became fast friends when I interviewed him months ago about his treasure trove of a website, Shot Context, and he’s been contributing to the site ever since. But what you might not know is that beyond writing reviews and essays, he’s also a filmmaker and a screenwriter and a playwright. His latest one-act, Very Little, was recently accepted to the NYC Fringe Festival for 2013, and its run begins this August the 14th. If you’ll be in town, definitely come check it out. (Here are the dates.) And do consider contributing to his IndieGoGo campaign for the project, to help cover production costs. This play is an out-of-pocket labor of love, and every bit helps.
Continue reading ‘Very Little’: Another Interview with John D’Amico
When someone says they https://www.exam2pass.com/700-651.html
https://www.exam2pass.com/700-901.html ‘learned something today’, I admit, I’m usually skeptical. Did they just memorize something, or did they actually take something away—i.e., did they develop an individual thought? Did their world shatter? During my youth I didn’t believe that movies, with their overdramatic diction and flashy action scenes, could actually reach down http://genericcialisonline-rxnow.com/ in my soul far enough to teach me something. Movies weren’t there to do
that. Movies were there to make me laugh at someone with toilet paper canada goose jas trailing out of their butt as they’re leaving the bathroom. Movies were there to allow me to soak in the hugeness
of a destructive explosion. Movies were the pinnacle of mindless entertainment, and I saw them as nothing more or less. But levitra vs viagra reviews then again, viagra I didn’t really watch too many movies in general, because back then there wasn’t Audio Description, the service for blind moviegoers like myself that describes key visual elements in between natural pauses in the movie’s soundtrack. Continue reading The Blind Side Opened My Eyes
The Lords of Salem (2013)
Written & Directed by Rob Zombie
101 min.
Mild spoilers.
If there’s one movie trend I can totally get behind, it’s the “B Movie Love Letter”. It’s almost its own genre at this point. Recent examples include Neil Marshall’s Doomsday, Wright and Pegg’s Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (and their upcoming The World’s End), Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained (really his whole catalogue), Ti West’s House of the Devil, Lexi Alexander’s Punisher: War Zone, and Peter Travis’ Dredd. And Star Wars and Indiana Jones are some not so recent examples. These filmmakers mine their inspirations for their best aspects and transplant them into modern productions—which are almost inevitably better than the movies they pay homage to, as the ‘originals’ were often made quickly and on the cheap just to provide cheap thrills and make a buck or two. Dredd was much talked about last year, and I’m hoping The Lords of Salem gets similar attention this year, because it’s even more fun.
Continue reading The Lords of Salem: A Love Letter To A Lost Genre