Cinema Mishmash

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My favorite film from the 2009 Chicago International Film Festival, Bong Joon-Ho’s Mother, doesn’t so much defy classification as much as it conglomerates genres in a way that seems as unusual as it is natural. Those who have seen Bong’s 2006 sea monster romp, The Host, will sense an immediate familiarity with Bong’s blending of [...]

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I’m just going to come out and say it: there isn’t enough going on in Scoop to justify it’s existence to anyone but die hard Woody Allen completists. Admittedly I have a love/hate reaction to Allen’s work. There is no doubt that he is a supremely gifted filmmaker, but Scoop is another example of his [...]

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One of the ideas behind Criterion’s Eclipse series is to facilitate cinematic discoveries, to introduce unknown films to, in the company’s words “adventurous home viewers.” The four film set entitled “Alexander Korda’s Private Lives” had all the makings of a discovery for me, in that I had no previous exposure to Korda, a prolific director [...]

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The first time I saw the trailer for Sunshine Cleaning, I thought exactly what I was supposed to think: this looks like a fun, refreshing indie comedy like Little Miss Sunshine. It has Alan Arkin, other impressive cast members (noteably Amy Adams), a van, a catchy song (by The Decemberists, and not in the actual film) and the [...]

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Rocket Science is a film which piqued my attention since it’s release, based on it’s comparison’s to Wes Anderson’s Rushmore and Todd Solondz’ Welcome to the Dollhouse. Turns out that that my unintentional avoidance of the film over the past two years merely delayed by disappointment: the aforementioned films might qualify as inspirations, but certainly [...]

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Comic actors, like comedies themselves, suffer eternally from being underestimated. The assumption is that actors whose work is primarily, or initially, dominated by light-hearted material must be naturally funny rather than talented. And while that observation might ring true for some portion of the comedic actors who’ve actually been given a decent chance to break [...]

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While I expected I Love You, Man to be yet another mediocre entry in the increasingly popular bromance comedy movie genre, two things in particular lift this entry ahead of the pack: Paul Rudd and Jason Segal. (There’s a pretty stellar supporting cast, as well.) Rudd plays the part of the damaged male lead, Peter [...]

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Some have credited producer/writer/director Judd Apatow as a power transforming (or reinvigorating) cinematic comedy. However, I can’t reconcile a film like Superbad with a good number of the films that bear the Apatow mantle. (Not just  Step Brothers, which I’ve recently suffered. Take a look at his producer resume, there are some marginal and poor [...]

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