Movies / More Oscar crap
Of course Crash won Best Picture. Why wouldn’t Academy members — I’m assuming they’re mostly white and Angeleno — rally around a film that momentarily relieved them of guilt they feel for living in...
View ArticleTV / Wes Anderson’s Amex ad
“Why would I put on a hat if my best friend just got blown up in front of me?” An excellent question posed by Jason Schwartzman’s character in Wes Anderson’s excellent Amex ad. In just under two...
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Must-see movies / Killer of Sheep
A moment from a beautiful, riveting scene in Killer of Sheep. Photo: Milestone Films. Killer of Sheep is director Charles Burnett’s account of life in the LA neighborhood of Watts in the early 1970’s....
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Dream come true / My Simpsons character
Thanks to a tip from fellow Simpsons fanatic and Cooper colleague Chris Noessel, I discovered that I could generate a Simpsons character with my likeness on the Simpsons Movie site. Holy crap. Truly,...
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Classic NBA / Red hot and rollin
If you’re 35-ish and you’ve followed basketball, you probably recall the virtues of the pre–David Stern NBA, the simpler times when corporate logos were incidental, local heroes more accessible, and...
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Andrei Tarkovsky’s family polaroids
Back when the Berkeley Public Library was the hub of my social universe, I spent a lot of time in its video room — in the mid-90’s, it occupied a little corner of the basement — working my way through...
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Groundbreaking / William Klein’s Ali
David Remnick’s excellent biography of Muhammad Ali, King of the World contains a truly stunning scene that sprung to mind during last week’s inauguration. Before Ali’s first big bout, a meeting with...
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Dirty Hands / Arty documentaries
David Choe: Setting a good example. I’m psyched to check out Dirty Hands, a new documentary about artist David Choe. I’m usually skeptical about “street art” films, but the trailer looks pretty great,...
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How cool was Hong Kong in the early 60’s?
Walking around the Maxwell Food Market near Singapore’s Chinatown reminded of Wong Kar Wai’s excellent movie about Hong Kong in the early 60’s In the Mood for Love. After I watched it last night, I...
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Extremely bloody, extremely funny
Ever since I heard about Battle Royale, I’ve wanted to see the film ... Quentin Tarantino has called it “the best movie since 1992,” so it’s probably not surprising that it’s both extremely bloody and...
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El Super
New York’s blizzard of 1977 makes a riveting cameo appearance in “El Super,” an indie (before the term was formalized) film about the hard adjustments that immigrants make in coming to New York. The...
View ArticleThe best heckle ever?
Via The Times: Kirk Douglas had a son, the little-remembered Eric Douglas, who was an actor and stand-up comedian. He once came over to the UK to do some gigs and inadvertently created one of British...
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