The Phantom of the Open
StarringRhys Ifans,
StudioBBC Film, BFI, Ingenious Media,
In 1974, a crane operator named Maurice Flitcroft watched the Piccadilly World Match Play Championship (a golf tournament) and decided that he would take up the game. Not as a fun new hobby, though. No, he intended to play at the British Open. Supported by his wife Jean, Maurice did indeed enter and play in the qualifying round of the Open after fibbing on his paperwork that he was a professional. He scored 121 and ended up summarily banned. Over the years, Flitcroft would attempt to re-enter the Open, using costumes and pseudonyms. If this all sounds handcrafted for immortalization on film, then you’re in luck. Continue Reading →
Spider-Man: No Way Home
How Marvel's latest cuts through the MCU trappings to deliver one of Spidey's most personal stories yet.
Please note that this article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
If you consume enough Spider-Man stories, you start to notice the malleability of the character. The assorted movies, shows, video games, and comic books all have their different takes on the wall-crawler and can plausibly plop him into different settings and moods. But you’ll also witness the two central aspects of Peter Parker that unite the various versions of the character across eras and mediums: (1) he chooses to do good, even when it’s hard, because he knows it’s the right thing to do, and (2) he suffers mightily for it. Continue Reading →
The King's Man
SimilarBatman Forever (1995),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Mary Poppins (1964), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005),
Watch afterEternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Nightmare Alley (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021),
StarringRhys Ifans, Robert Aramayo,
Studio20th Century Studios,
Early in the King's Man, Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) reads a newspaper chronicling the human cost of the then-nascent World War I. The headline for all this carnage reads "When will this misery end?" It’s fitting since I found myself constantly asking myself the same question as The King's Man dragged on and on. For some reason, a franchise that’s previously leaned heavily on anal sex jokes and Elton John beating up evil henchmen wants to get serious in the most superficial way possible. Continue Reading →
The Boat That Rocked
The camera in Pirate Radio won’t stop wobbling – it’s so damn annoying. At first glance, this choice makes sense: most of this rotten film is set on “Radio Rock,” a broadcasting boat sending the greatest hits of the baby boomer era across '60s British airwaves. Carl (Tom Sturridge) has been sent aboard to live with his godfather (Bill Nighy); he’s inducted into the crew’s debauchery while the posh, no-good government tries to shut down the party. Continue Reading →
Vanity Fair
Mira Nair’s 2004 adaptation of Vanity Fair opens with our famous heroine, Becky Sharp, as a young child tearfully watching her father sell off a portrait of her deceased mother. The portrait, a dark Gainsborough-esque profile with its sut-colored background, dusty white skin, and faintly rosy cheeks, means so much for young Becky, and us in Nair’s audience. As the camera tracks at child-height, watching the portrait leave the shop, Becky loses the last connection to a lineage that will both help and hinder her social mobility. Continue Reading →