It was a very good year for American movies, and no movie was more American in its vision than P. T. Anderson’s swaggering horror show about oil, religion and madness in the early 20th-century West. At its center is Daniel Plainview, a tall, gangly, beady-eyed prospector who emerges from a dark fissure in the earth—a mineshaft that doubles, perhaps, as perdition—to begin a single-minded, unholy quest to rule California’s lakes of black gold. Although Plainview’s hard work embodies the American…
Is it reasonable to judge a low-budget Inuit picture against state-of-the-art Hollywood epics, like Attack of the Clones or The Lord of the Rings? When the film outpaces the creative spirit of George Lucas and is every bit as enthralling as Peter Jackson's digital riches, I think the comparison is fair, especially since Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner relies on the same mythical conventions that encode its more expensive counterparts.
To a large extent, the success of pop raconteurs like Lucas…
My 18-year-old son didn't want to go with me to see The Mandalorian and Grogu, but he was up for Network, which I recently bought on Criterion 4K disc. It's been decades since I last saw it and it sure hits differently now. Satire has become reality; warning has become requiem.
"But he instantly saw that it would be impossible for him to escape from the regiment. It enclosed him. And there were iron laws of tradition and law on four sides. He was in a moving box. As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never wished to come to the war. He had not enlisted of his free will." -Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage
Look, as a 48-year-old white suburban dude whose main groove is bands like Wilco and Eels, I'm clearly not the target demographic for this. But Kendrick Lamar is undeniable--the man is a force of nature, a rare artist whose albums I always buy on release date. (Yes, kids, I know how to stream music. But I still buy music, too. Like I said... 48-year-old dude.)
Five stars for the concert. Four stars for the movie, which does a slightly-better-than-workmanlike job…
