Talking Movies: Origin story
Two major movie releases are happening this late spring: The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann) on May 10 and Man of Steel (Zack Snyder) on June 14. Man of Steel is about a guy who gets transplanted from a ...
Talking Movies
Talking Movies: Pablo Larrain’s No
During the run-up to the Iraq war, there was a popular bumper sticker which satirized the idea of Iraqi elections. It showed an imaginary Iraqi ballot with two voting options. Option one said “I vote...
Talking Movies: The perfect game
As spring turns the grass green, my fancy lightly turns to thoughts of baseball. The fancies of movie producers must also turn in that direction, because 42, the new biopic about Jackie Robinson, is ...
Three films to look out for at this week’s IC DOCS
We’re pretty cosmopolitan here: This is one of at least two film fests we fest in the IC. Intrigued? You should be. It’s going to be a hoot; the kind of hoot that can only be found by sitting calmly ...
Meet the jurors of IC DOCS, April 11-13
This year marks the 11th edition of the Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, a diverse showcase of short documentary and experimental film and media, that runs April 11-13 at the Bijou ...
Talking Movies: Oppression’s Cold Embrace
Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may not envision their award quite this way, the “Best Foreign Language Film” Oscar seems really to recognize the best film of the year made any...
Talking Movies: Taking on another dimension
I recently sat down with glasses atop my glasses to watch Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. Previews of money-grubbing re-releases zoomed out at me: Titanic 3D, Star Wars 3D, Halloween 3D, Lion King 3D, Raider...
Talking Movies: Rust & Bone
The spirit of our age walks on prosthetic limbs. Of course, humanity has always been fascinated by amputees. But whereas prosthetics were once a sign of creepiness, from Captain Ahab to Captain Hook,...
Talking Movies: Pitching Woo
Maybe your Valentine’s Day attempts to court that hottie with a pulse weren’t such a success. So what? Hop back on that horse. The horse of studious preparation, that is. If I’ve learned anything fro...
Talking Movies: Lincoln before Spielberg
I’ll be surprised if Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln doesn’t take a handful of the 12 Academy Awards for which it’s nominated. The greatest movie about our 16th president, John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln (...
Talking Movies: In The Dark
The movies have a strange relationship with the mass shootings that have recently plagued our country. When the police arrested James Eagan Holmes for the massacre at The Dark Knight in Aurora, Colo...
Talking Movies: The Lincoln of Yore
In 1975, Henry Fonda gave a retrospective interview to the BBC about his career up to that point. When asked about his reaction to being suggested for the title role in John Ford’s 1939 film Young Mr...
Talking Movies: The Year after the Year of the Woman
It’s finally that time of year, folks. Loved ones gather together by the crackling fire to share memories and hugs. Bygones are forgotten as we remember what’s really important. Grudges fall by the w...
Talking Movies: Skyfall Review – It’s a Man’s World....
I don’t know what’s more shocking: that twenty-three James-Bond movies have been made over the past fifty years, or that I’ve seen them all willingly. To understand why Skyfall, Sam Mendes’s fine reb...
Talking Movies: The War Room & The Alps
It took 190 years of American political history and all the creative capabilities of the 1980 Reagan campaign to distill, finally, the fundamental question facing every American electorate: Are you r...