Author Archive

Whatcha want: Soul Power

By Scott Samuelson • Oct 2nd, 2009 • Category: Movies

In Kinshasa, Zaire, on October 20, 1974, in what was billed as the Rumble in the Jungle, Muhammad Ali employed a strategy called the rope-a-dope, letting the reigning heavyweight champion George Foreman pummel him for the first several rounds of the fight. Then Ali began taunting the wearying champ, “They told me you could punch, [...]



Year Zilch

By Scott Samuelson • Jul 9th, 2009 • Category: Movies

In the beginning was High Fidelity, at least as far as I’m concerned. An actor I’d never noticed before by the name of Jack Black was channeling Generation X energies like nobody else on the silver screen. His Barry, the record-store slacker-snob, stole the show and left me with the firm conviction that a new [...]



Copping Out

By Scott Samuelson • May 8th, 2009 • Category: Movies

Jody Hill’s Observe and Report is one weird movie. I’m pretty sure this dark comedy is meant to provoke reflection: The title suggests that the movie is holding the mirror up to our reality. In a sense, it is; the worst parts of the movie are the most interesting, and the best parts are pretty bad. [...]



Chaplin on the Economy

By Scott Samuelson • Apr 8th, 2009 • Category: Movies

Someone should write an essay called “In Praise of Pretentiousness,” because in the first years of adulthood—please, those years only!—a little insufferable pretentiousness goes a long way. It was pretentiousness, I admit, that led me into a Charlie Chaplin film festival when I was a freshman at Grinnell: I showed up to appreciate silent films. [...]



Tears of a Clown

By Scott Samuelson • Mar 13th, 2009 • Category: Movies

La Strada
dir. Federico Fellini
108 mins
In the early morning hours, at the end of a spirited drinking party, as passed-out sophisticates snore on the couches, an old man lectures two weary writers that tragedy and comedy have the same source, and that one who truly understands their root should be able to compose both with equal [...]



The Best Movies of 2008 (Most of which I didn’t actually see)

By Scott Samuelson • Jan 14th, 2009 • Category: Movies

Sydney Smith once observed, “I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices one so.” As a rule, I do watch the movies before reviewing them; though when it comes to the big Hollywood productions anymore, I wonder how necessary my principle is. So many of them have been made to order according to [...]



A Half-Jigger of Solace

By Scott Samuelson • Dec 5th, 2008 • Category: Movies

How many children does Lady Macbeth have? That’s the kind of ridiculous question a certain strain of literature teacher will torture students with. The answer, obviously, is: Shakespeare would have told us, had it been important. Nevertheless, there are a few characters who so transcend their storylines that they really do acquire lives of their [...]



The Dude Still Abides

By Scott Samuelson • Nov 5th, 2008 • Category: Movies

In the 10 years since the release of The Big Lebowski, a few things happened. Cell phones overtook our public spaces. The internet colonized our private time. George W. Bush won once in the popular vote and twice in the electoral college. On a single morning, terrorists brought down the twin towers, destroyed part of [...]



Movie Review: Edge of Heaven

By Scott Samuelson • Oct 9th, 2008 • Category: Movies

The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite)
Directed by Fatih Akin
October 3-5, Bijou

There is an old poem by Horace that celebrates simple country living; its surprise ending is that the whole thing turns out to be the pitch of a city dweller trying to sell some rural property. During the Olympics, there was a series [...]



50 Years of Obsession With Vertigo

By Scott Samuelson • Sep 3rd, 2008 • Category: Movies

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is celebrating this fall its 50th anniversary as an object of obsession for movie lovers. This year also marks the less-auspicious 15th anniversary of when I became obsessed with it in the commons room of a college dorm. Though I squirmed right off the filthy couch at the final [...]