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The World’s End
The fitting conclusion to the Cornetto Trilogy, each of which has its special pleasures. But I’ve always loved World’s End the best, perhaps for my namesake – the “King” of Gary’s in film. One mile. Twelve pubs. Twelve pints. And a story of friendship, loss, and what the total absence of personal transformation might look…
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The Hornet’s Nest
This is as close as you can (or would want) to come to combat in Afghanistan. Those are slugs whispering by the camera and you can see the very unsimulated fear on the faces of the father and son doing the filming. There is no real story arc (it’s Afghanistan), just visceral, hard-to-watch, gripping, and…
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(Anything But) Babylon
La La Land was about people who take their art seriously. Babylon is about people who don’t. And while Hollywood might always have had more of the latter, Babylon fails because A) people who take their art seriously are a lot more interesting than people who are just screwing around and B) Chazelle doesn’t seem…
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Air
How much of Sonny Vaccaro’s inspirational close to MJ is really about Ben Affleck? Ben, after all, knows a thing or two about meteoric rises, the insatiable public need to tear down its heroes, and the long-term price of fame. Affleck is having a well-deserved “moment” right now, and, even better, is delivering consistently good…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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