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She spends much of her time in New York standing across the street from her boyfriend’s apartment, waiting to confront him. Them. But, the cold winter nights drive her indoors to seek refuge in a coffee shop run by Jeremy (Jude Law), who is a fellow lost soul. They bond as they realize this over pie, blueberry, of course, that goes uneaten every night. Stray pie to match the stray souls. His journey is very much the same as her’s in spirit, but is on a different set of tracks. Where she will eventually run to find herself, he stays still to be found. Posted in: DVD, Reviews, Film | Comments (0) |
Inspired by a short film about a diner he’d previously made, Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai, in his first English-language film, has fashioned a lush and gorgeous portrait of the American landscape, taking us from New York to Nashville, to Nevada and clear across to California. This is Elizabeth’s (Norah Jones) journey to take the long way to cross the street and find her soul again, after realizing her boyfriend has found someone else to eat pork chops with.|
In recent years I’ve heard the name “Joy Division” tossed around in the small circles of music aficionados I sometimes frequent. No aficionado of music myself, I let their fawning references pass over my head. I knew I had long heard of the band, but never gave much thought to it. Admittedly, I realize now the reason for my disinterest was my confusing of Joy Division – the seminal, upwrought dance-punk group of the late ’70s – with Pansy Division – a ’90s “queercore” band of much less repute. As a young teen flipping through the stacks of indierock at the Middletown Ear X-tacy, the cover shots of naked, eagerly smiling men stacked atop one another burned an unsought icon in my mind’s eye. Much later, when I heard Joy Division’s most popular single, “Love Will Keep Us Apart,” on a party mix, I thought perhaps either the queer-rock group’s audience had suddenly expanded beyond its expected boundaries, or I happened to be at a party whose host was well-versed in highly obscure rock bands. Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened the package containing the newly released DVD documentary Joy Division and read the tagline, “The true story of the meteoric rise and fall of one of the most influential bands of our time.” Now call me an ignorant homophobe, but I had never presumed such an openly gay band would have garnered so lofty a stature. That’s when it hit me, and Oh! How very stupid I felt. Not only had I been completely unaware of “one of the most influential bands of our time,” but I had confused said influential band with another group whose music is most likely all but out of print (Though I don’t recall seeing those records ever missing from their trusty posts in the CD racks, so they still may be there). Well, what better way to learn about a cultural behemoth than to watch a documentary? Aside from listening to the actual music, that is. (more…) Posted in: DVD, Reviews, Music | Comments (0) |
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The film tells the story of slacker Jerry Ferro (Carolla). He once showed promise as a boxer, but, for some reason or another, decided to quit and now works as a carpenter. He and his friend Oswald are fired from their gig working construction after Ferro sets up a Home Alone-esque booby trap that send a belt sander flying through the windshield of their overbearing bosses’ new truck. Once our protagonists’ girlfriends finds this out, she promptly leaves him. (more…) Posted in: DVD, Reviews | Comments (0) |
Most reviews for Adam Carolla’s The Hammer typically contain some form of the phrase “No, it’s actually really good”. Critics accustomed to seeing him in lowbrow productions such as The Man Show are often shocked that he’s associated with something of quality.|
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In 1979, Anton Corbijn was a 24-year-old photographer for Britain’s New Musical Express when he was sent out on assignment to photograph the seminal post-punk foursome Joy Division. Now, 28 years later, he’s photographing Joy Division once again, but this time it’s for himself. His debut feature film, |
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The strong and caring Elaine sacrifices most of her life in order to help her son have the fullest life possible. This award-winning documentary outlines the lives of five specific children, all suffering from varying degrees of autism. Some with mild symptoms, others full-fledged and barely able to communicate. I sort of wish the film was called The Miracle Project instead, after the organization it focuses on. That way people would know up front what the film was about. It truly is a miraculous story. (more…) Posted in: DVD, Reviews, Film | Comments (0) |
When I first heard of |
One thing to make note of. If you want to share this, actually click the “Get Widget” button. If you click “Embed Player” from inside the trailer, it actually embeds this YouTube video instead. Which is still a neat video, but it’s old news to us. Posted in: DVD, Film | Comments (0) |
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The DVDs are now available via Gnomon’s website and in art stores nationwide. Posted in: DVD | Comments (0) |
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Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table when company comes. Nobody’ll dare say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” then. That was Langston Hughes (from a beautiful little poem entitled “I, Too”). Melvin B. Tolson (played wonderfully by Denzel Washington) recites this in one of the more memorable beginning scenes of The Great Debaters, a film loosely based on the 1935 all-black debate team from Texas’s Wiley College. A Team that successfully defeated all the white colleges they encountered. In the film, they overcome all obstacles and are finally allowed to take on Harvard. This isn’t exactly what happened in real life, but as I said this is “loosely” based on a true story. This is a trick Hollywood often plays, using words like “based on” and “inspired by” in order to make you think that what you are watching is actual history. Well, this isn’t history, even if Oprah led you to believe so. It is little more than a predictable, by the book, inspirational tale of triumph in bleak times. However, predictable as it may be, it is a very good film that carries the weight of something very important. (more…) Posted in: DVD, Reviews, Film | Comments (0) |
I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes, but I laugh, and eat well, and grow strong.| previous posts » |