“Are We There Yet?”
March 26, 2020
March 26, 2020
March 19, 2020
March 14, 2020
No. It’s not a complicated answer. COVID-19 isn’t a fart in the wind, which is about what it takes to get media to start screeching about the end of this or the end of that part of the industry. But this isn’t Armageddon either. Not even close. That is, unless it is literally Armageddon and […]
March 4, 2020
There is something sad about a bad Pixar movie. Like so many things Disney, Pixar is going through a generational change in the post-Lasseter era. The place is still loaded to the gills with talented people. But when you see a movie like Onward, you realize that something or someone was missing. Onward is not […]
March 2, 2020
In the early evening of Sunday night, March 1, about 12 days after cutting the cord, there is a headline in my e-mail inbox. AT&T has yet ANOTHER offering for streaming. How many ways can one company flip-flop on their plans for The Future? But seriously… this is becoming a real problem for AT&T, as […]
February 26, 2020
The journey to a box-free television life continues. There is something almost as exciting about gathering up all the DirecTV hardware all over the house as there was in having it installed. It’s all gone to FedEx (no remotes requested) for free delivery back to the home ship. Shelves are more open. Fewer wires float […]
February 25, 2020
I didn’t know exactly what to expect from The Invisible Man when I sat down. The ads told me that the woman at the center, played by the always-compelling and more-interesting-than-your-average movie star, Elisabeth Moss, was not imagining it all. They told me that, eventually, others would suffer the wrath of the man formerly known […]
February 21, 2020
I was planning to cut the cord a year ago. My DirecTV bill was around $180 a month and they announced that they were going to raise the price another $10 a month. DirecTV Now (as it was then known) was around $50 a month. HBO was free with my AT&T unlimited phone plan. Showtime […]
February 16, 2020
I’ve been anxious to write this column… and avoiding it… for a week. The biggest problem is that I don’t want to be guilty of what most of the writing on the Parasite win has been… a clear reflection of a predetermined set of beliefs that would have been reflected in a specific way, regardless […]
February 11, 2020
The show, simply, sucked. And the first big reason it sucked was because of the producers and The Academy paying endless homage to diversity in a way that was so ham-fisted and poorly managed that it felt like a husband whose wife caught him in their bed with 2 strippers and a donkey trying to […]
February 10, 2020
Simply… a rundown of the show… with a few bits of commentary. Janelle Monáe opens the show with an homage to a movie that was not nominated that turns into a really cool number paying homage to other movies that were not nominated. (There was a dancing Joker, and other costumes represented Dolemite Is My […]
February 9, 2020
There is so much to dig through that this was intended to be two columns. But it’s the day before Oscar and these pieces have sat on my desktop for two days and F.X. Feeney is dead and Orson Bean was killed while jaywalking at 91 and I don’t feel like tearing anyone specific a […]
February 4, 2020
Final voting closes today and I want to suggest another way to tear the whole thing up. As discussed in the last column, I am putting aside all the reasons why change is agonizing in The Academy. My thought is to look at all the problems with current system and to devise a better way […]
February 4, 2020
The first story that everyone was all over after Lin-Manuel Miranda let the public know that Hamilton was coming to The Big Screen was the price tag. Disney paid $75 million, plus a commitment to a full theatrical release. In every story was also the fact that the “film” of Hamilton was shot live on […]
January 29, 2020
One of the great movie experiences I had in 2019 was Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut. Francis Coppola did a recut of the film, after the original, the Redux, and however many TV and airplane cuts, and you could see in the film that he had opened to the door to changing every single moment […]
January 20, 2020
It struck about halfway through the SAG Awards on Sunday night… which followed the PGAs on Saturday… which followed the ACE Awards on Friday… which followed Oscar nominations last Monday… which followed BFCA/CCAs on Sunday… which followed LAFCA on Saturday… which followed NBR on Wednesday… which followed NYFCC on Tuesday… which followed The Globes on […]
January 17, 2020
It turned out to be a pretty terrific year for film. Movies you can watch repeatedly and keep mining new stuff and reassessing old without getting bored. I stuck to 20 motion pictures, overall. Two sets of 10. And the only hierarchical order within the two groups is for my top choice. Top 10 Motion […]
January 13, 2020
I’ve been explaining this for years. People don’t want to understand. Next year’s Oscars are already down to 60 films being taken seriously. By March, the number will be down to 45. By the end of July, the number will be down to about 30. About 23 of those 30 (or so) will go to […]
January 11, 2020
People adjust. People with multimillion budgets adjust easily. The February 9 date of this year’s Oscars have led to whining beyond all whining. “People don’t have time to see all the movies!” “It’s all happening too quick!” “All the other shows are bunched up!” And here is the issue for The Academy. Who cares? The […]
January 7, 2020
The IrishmanProducers: Jane Rosenthal & Robert De Niro, Emma Tillinger Koskoff & Martin Scorsese Jojo RabbitProducers: Carthew Neal, Taika Waititi JokerProducers: Todd Phillips & Bradley Cooper, Emma Tillinger Koskoff Knives OutProducers: Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman Little WomenProducer: Amy Pascal Marriage StoryProducers: Noah Baumbach, David Heyman Once Upon a Time… in HollywoodProducers: David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, […]
| March 26, 2020
A Little ******* Perspective, Please
| March 19, 2020
Is The Sky Actually Falling This Time?
| March 14, 2020
| March 21, 2020
DP/30 Audio: Bombshell, Jay Roach
| December 13, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jonathan Majors
| December 4, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Mustang, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
| December 4, 2019
