Surely there has never been a more provocative time to make a movie about deception, especially deception by the agencies of the US government. Had the…
Warren Sprouse
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Talking Movies: Girls rule in Kimberly Peirce’s Carrie
Even with the internet on your side, bullying a witch in high school probably still ends up with you dying in a fiery crash in your boyfriend’s car. The crash is fierier now, the car and the boyfriend slightly faster and you get to text your dad for help before it happens; otherwise, everything is […]
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Talking Movies: Recent films by Alex van Warmerdam
With the recent conclusion of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the advertising blitz for Oscar night (yes, five months from now) can officially begin. While the top awards and appertaining press were about movies which told us how Europeans felt about American racial oppression–always appreciated, Steve McQueen–we should not overlook the work of a […]
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Talking Movies: A look at recent films about music
Woe to the cinephile who tries to make sense of the U.S. music industry through its representation in film. Never has a more confusing and hopelessly self-referential picture been painted under the guise of recounting cultural history. Not so long ago, popular films about music might include the bands themselves—the romping Beatles films are still […]
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Talking Movies: Rounding the bases abroad
As summer dawns, American sports fans begin to drift into a sort of happy languor as they pursue the time-honored rituals of the national pastime. Between the point at which Cubs fans recognize that their team’s hopes are exclusively mathematical and the hoopla of the mid-July all-star break, early season excitement flattens into the more […]
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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 for Saddam Hussein;” option two said “Please arrest me and torture my family.”
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Film review: Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color
A Pig farmer, a hypnotist, a mad scientist and Henry David Thoreau. All of these may or may not be characters in Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color and some of them may or may not be the same person. Nothing in this azure-and-beige meditation on storytelling and modern experience is reliable, maybe least of all its […]
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(American) Winter is coming this Saturday
Given the scope of the 2008-9 financial collapse and recession, it is safe to say that most of us know people who were adversely affected by this economic disaster in some way, perhaps profoundly so. We may not, however, have witnessed many of the more private moments of suffering, emotional turmoil, physical deprivation, shame, and hopelessness that such victims endured and, sadly, continue to endure.
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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 anywhere on Earth except those English-speaking countries, which for the Golden Boy, really means any place not Hollywood. Math king and possible robot, Nate Silver did not even bother to predict a winner in this category for 2013, largely because he had no data—other film organizations in the United States do not give an award for best foreign film.
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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. Lincoln, he said that his initial response was simply fear. Playing Lincoln, Fonda suggested, was “like playing God.” […]
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Correction: No Joan Rivers movie this month
Correction to the “Now Playing” section in Talking Movies, LV121 (the current issue): The Bijou has some great films showing in November, but Joan Rivers: a Piece of Work is not one of them. This listing was found and mistakenly lifted from on an outdated website for a past film series. Apologies for the confusion.
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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 really better off than you were four years ago? If yes, vote for the incumbent; if no, throw the bum out. We are seeing shades […]
