A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened
I remember parking my 7-year-old hinder in front of the television set on the evening of Nov 17, 1978 to bear witness to something that would presumably be unforgettable—a two-hour holiday special that set in the world of Star Wars, then pretty much the hottest thing in the universe. Like so many other people at the time, when it was all over, I was baffled by what I had just witnessed. Continue Reading →
Clerks III
SimilarAs It Is in Heaven (2004), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Happy Death Day 2U (2019),
StarringRosario Dawson,
Considering Kevin Smith's career from a 2022 perspective is a fascinating exercise. His early output, from 1994's Clerks to 2001's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, were once quintessential texts for Gen X / film nerds, treated with the same reverence as the films of Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez. But that isn’t the case anymore, and hasn’t been for over a decade. Continue Reading →
George Carlin's American Dream
SimilarPope John Paul II,
StudioHBO Documentary Films,
This review is also a story about my father. Please indulge me for a moment. Continue Reading →
Clerk
Watch afterBullet Train (2022),
The story of Kevin Smith certainly sounds like fodder for an inspirational movie. A film geek from New Jersey cobbled some money together, grabbed a camera, and filmed a movie at his convenience store workplace. Continue Reading →
Jagged
SimilarCléo from 5 to 7 (1962),
StudioHBO Documentary Films,
Alison Klayman's chronicle of the Canadian singer's rise to fame centers around her seminal 1995 album, and the trail it blazed for female artists.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.)
This year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival finally got a hint of scandal—albeit of the most well-mannered variety imaginable—when it was announced that rock star Alanis Morissette, the focus of the new documentary Jagged, would not be attending the film’s gala world premiere, reportedly due to what the Washington Post dubbed “unspecified issues with the finished product.” Continue Reading →
Southland Tales
SimilarIce Age (2002), Mary Poppins (1964), Sissi (1955), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004),
Watching the first cut of Richard Kelly’s ultra-ambitious Donnie Darko follow-up is like riding a wave of mutilation.
Southland Tales, director/writer Richard Kelly’s apocalyptic epic of a world gone berserk in the run-up to a paranoia-riven presidential election, is at long last a little closer to completion. Thanks to the fine folks at Arrow Films, the 158-minute cut of the picture that played at Cannes – as opposed to the 145-minute theatrical cut – is now widely available for the first time. Compared to the theatrical cut, The Cannes Cut lays out Kelly’s bigger picture more clearly and deepens the (famously odd) ensemble’s work.
For good and ill, The Cannes Cut is still Southland Tales. It’s one of the great whatsit movies of the early 21st century, an artifact of the mid-to-late Dubya years that captures the specific tenor of the United States’ anxieties and fears from that time in amber. It’s a kinky, surreal Armageddon wounded by its early-aughts-sour-bro treatment of its ensemble’s leading women. It is, in other words, an extremely 2006 movie. In its best moments, it describes and invokes the overwhelming sensation of being alive at a time when everyone and everything has come undone. Continue Reading →
The Last Blockbuster
The smell of buttery popcorn and the sounds of shuffling of plastic cases only paints a partial picture of the era of a trip to a video rental store. During the '90s, the video store reigned supreme, and there was one giant that ruled them all: Blockbuster. There was once a store opening every seventeen minutes; now they’re reduced to one lone outpost in Bend, Oregon. The rise and fall of this entertainment empire is the subject of Taylor Morden’s documentary The Last Blockbuster. This quirky documentary follows the nostalgia trail, taking us on a journey from Blockbuster’s glory days to its last stand in Bend, Oregon. Continue Reading →