Google "best movies of 2011 so far" (without the quotation marks) and you'll get approximately 19-and-a-half million results, which is just about what this whole obsessive-compulsive list-making thing feels like to me. "Ten-best" (and "ten-worst") mania used to be an…
At The Frontal Cortex (a blog you should bookmark), Wired contributing editor Jonah Lehrer reveals his backward reading habits (yes, he likes to peek at the endings first) and cites a study that may indicate people enjoy stories more when…
From my piece on Buster Keaton's "Our Hospitality" at Alt Screen: Among the things you will learn from watching Buster Keaton's "Our Hospitality": ● A novel method for easily collecting firewood. ● How to move a donkey away from railroad…
From Andrew Davies: I think the first shot of Christopher Nolan's Memento could be best described as the film in miniature because of how the subject of the shot establishes several important elements of the film. The credits begin on…
Netflix Relief Fund with Jason Alexander from Jason Alexander
I understand. That is to say, I understand Netflix's reasons for raising prices and offering DVD-only and streaming-only plans (they were losing money, they want to push customers to streaming which has lower delivery costs, etc.) and I understand the…
Above: Joyce McKinney and Errol Morris at a screening of "Tabloid" at the Vista Theatre in Los Angeles (Los Feliz), July 13, 2011. I believe that's her dog's leash she's holding. (photo by Tiffany Rose) "Joyce and I are getting…
From my piece on Errol Morris's latest, "Tabloid," at Press Play: Ripped from today's headlines, Errol Morris's sensational "Tabloid" uncovers outrageous stories of sex, bondage, Mormons, kidnapping, cloning, drugging, buggery (or at least bugging) and betrayal circa 1977, and features…
It's simple, really: Trailer for Adam Sandler's "Jack and Jill" (Dennis Dugan, 2011) + memorable scene from "Hardcore" (Paul Schrader, 1979) in which George C. Scott discovers that his missing daughter has been making porno movies. Instant movie magic. (tip:…
In 1988, Roger Ebert writes a review of Mike Figgis's "Stormy Monday," which begins: "Why is it," someone was asking the other day, "that you movie critics spend all of your time talking about the story and never talk about…
Great Movies