Joel and Ethan Coen Two Serious Men Gaze Into Their Past by Jay S. Jacobs Brothers and auteurs Joel and Ethan Coen grew up in a sparse, ticky-tack, rustic early suburb of Minneapolis in the late 60s. Now, after over two decades in filmmaking in which they have turned their incisive pens (okay, more likely computers) onto … Continue reading
Tony Scott A Master Director Offers One Helluva Ride with The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 by Brad Balfour It seems everyday, some controversy about the subway makes it in the papers, whether it’s about good new leadership or bad old leadership; whether it’s about the list of best trains or worst trains or … Continue reading
Woody Allen, Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood and Patricia Clarkson – Willing to Do Whatever Works by Jay S. Jacobs It’s a pretty well known fact in the entertainment world that legendary filmmaker Woody Allen hates movie promotion. He almost never does publicity junkets for his films, which is why his last minute decision to … Continue reading
Michel Gondry and Leos Carax French Directors Take on Tokyo! by Brad Balfour As if it were a creative corollary to the act of cinematic deconstruction, this strange tri-parted feature, Tokyo!, was released on the same weekend as Watchmen – a film based on a huge graphic novel that’s all about deconstruction. This strange absurdist-cartoon interpretation of the ultimate … Continue reading
Ari Folman An Israeli Director Dances with the Dogs of War In Waltz with Bashir by Brad Balfour Of all the films nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar this year, director Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir reaped substantial press and stirred the most controversy. A documentary fashioned as an animated film, it is as much an imagined … Continue reading
…AROUND (2009) Starring Rob Evans, Molly Ryman, Ron Brice, Marcel Torres, Berenice Mosca, Veronica Heffron, David Joseph Boyd, David Joseph Boyd, Ali Tobia, Amy Hoerler, Julie Tran, Shawn Mahoney, Steven Grgas, Kristopher Torres and Nabil Vinas. Screenplay by David Spaltro. Directed by David Spaltro. Distributed by Wandering/Cut Films. 104 minutes. Not Rated. Writer/director David Spaltro’s … Continue reading
Steph Green Living on the Short Circuit by Jay S. Jacobs It’s not like film directors just appear working feature films with no prior experience. Most great directors have gotten their feet wet working on short films: including Steven Spielberg (“Amblin’”), Martin Scorsese (“What’s A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?”), … Continue reading
Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer With Valkyrie, They Illustrate That Slide Down the Slippery Slope to Fascism by Brad Balfour Though he totally missed the Oscar loop, you have to give some credit to media magnet Tom Cruise for releasing his World War II drama, Valkyrie at the end of 2008 despite the surge of … Continue reading
matt nix burn notice after reading by jay s. jacobs It takes skills to reinvigorate a tried-and-true genre like the spy story, however with his fast and funny hit series Burn Notice, Matt Nix is doing what he can to throw the style a changeup. Nix created and still runs the popular USA Network drama, about a former spy … Continue reading
Director John Walter Talkin’ About a Theater of War and Meryl Streep by Brad Balfour While Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep garners attention for her role as the authoritarian nun in Doubt, another film – the doc Theater of War out now – offers insight into Steep as an actress, and it grapples with the nature of war as … Continue reading
