The Wind Rises (2013)
Written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
126 min.
Spoiler-free.
Dear Prospective Viewers Of The Wind Rises,
I know what you’re wondering—which version to see. Both are out now, some theaters even playing both, and you don’t want to spend your money on the wrong one.
Well, I’ve seen both, and I’m here to help.
Continue reading The Wind Rises: Sub or Dub?
Greg DeLiso: Why are all of these cool people dying? Harold Ramis right after Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bob Casale from Devo, and now, a guy I’m ashamed to say I did not know the name of. But, his face, his voice, and his performances were a huge part of my childhood.
Independence Day was a huge theater going experience for me as a kid. My mom took me one Summer afternoon when I was ten years old, and it was like my The Day the Earth Stood Still or The Blob—a fun excursion into the bigness of movies, the kind of stuff Spielberg and Scorsese talk about from their youth.
Continue reading R.I.P. James Rebhorn: Greg & Cody’s Thoughts
I’m not really sitting with you right now, Steven Spielberg, but I want to be. There’s really nothing I could think of that would be more of an achievement. To be honest, I don’t think about your movies enough anymore, and I don’t reference you enough in my pieces on this site. It’s because talking about you is kind of old hat. You are unequivocally the most successful, and the most household name-y of any movie director in history. You created my childhood, and millions upon millions of other childhoods. Your name had as much market value in the 80s and 90s as McDonald’s and Reebok. (I made that last sentence up but it sounds real!)
So anyway, yeah, I’m sitting here (not really) with the most iconic living legend filmmaker of all time, Steven Spielberg:
Continue reading An (Imaginary) Interview with Steven Spielberg
When YouTube started to happen, it seemed like the great leveler. Kids in their basement suddenly had distribution equal to that of the major Hollywood studios. And following in the wake of cheaper and better video equipment, it looked like the control of all media had shifted from ‘The Man’ to the everyman.
The results of this have been dismally revealing.
Thanks to the internet, and YouTube, we now have confirmation that 99.999% of all art completely sucks. Before, we could only look to the establishment and their putrid output to see how bad everything is. But with every person on earth making stuff, and throwing it up on there, we now have proof that almost nobody can make anything good.
Continue reading I Want To Talk About The Internet
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There is a moment in Fargo (I’ll never stop talking about Fargo) that makes me die with laughter every single time I watch it. The movie is packed with black comedy and irony and brilliant deadpans (the license plate joke, holy shit) and some basic but perfect physical gags (Jean Lundegaard bursting out of the shower draped in its curtain like a kid in a homemade ghost costume), but I ain’t talking abaout all that stuff. I’m talking about the stills above. This moment seems to be more of an editorial in-joke than an actual written joke, but of course you never can tell with the Coen brothers. After Jean’s dad and Stan Grossman and Jerry discuss the plot’s central ransom over breakfast, Jerry is at the counter. The beaming cashier asks how Jerry’s meal was. After he answers rather shortly, he comes back with an affable “How you doin’” and when it cuts back to her, we see her cock her head to the side before it cuts again. All she does is cock her head to the side. No response, no change in expression, just a slight pitch. It’s hilarious. It’s insanely funny.
Continue reading Not All Movies Should Have Jokes, But All Movies Should Have a Sense of Humor