In Netflix's never-ending quest to destroy the theatrical film model once and for all, they put forward a lot of movies in hopes of garnering some Academy hardware. In addition to the two International Feature submissions they put their marketing heft behind (Chile's In Her Place and the massively overblown exercise in missing the point … Continue reading DownStream – TUDUM! Part Three – Narrative Features
I've mentioned in two recent posts some particular shortfalls in the adaptation process. The first, as it related to Freud's Last Session, was the fact that if you adapt a stage show to the screen, you have to make it look and feel like it's not a stage show, otherwise you lose any semblance of … Continue reading Resigned Celie, Delivered – The Color Purple
There's a crucial lesson to be learned from The Last Voyage of the Demeter, the new horror movie based on Bram Stoker's original Dracula novel. It's not about ethics, morality, or even basic survival. No, more than anything, this film is a pristine example of how NOT to do an adaptation. From the very first … Continue reading I Want it to Make Sense – The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Tis a tale oft told, that makers hath rolled,One twelfth of a gross, through celluloid's Globe,By Welles and Roman, nearly of Laurence,Now a Coen alone doth enter the fray.To speak evermore of the killer Thane,Who's play is too superstitious to name,The Tragedy of Macbeth goes to screen.But what more can be said? What news? What … Continue reading A Soliloquy – The Tragedy of Macbeth
This is the part of the program where I admit to something that, based on references I've made for the last few years, might come as a shock. I've never seen either of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musicals. It's not that I'm not interested, just that opportunities are few and far between. The last time I went … Continue reading These Are The People In Your Neighborhood – In The Heights
It's been a really good year so far for movies that bring racism to light. We've had pantheon films like Sorry to Bother You and Blindspotting, and even middling fare like Gringo can still get the point across with some degree of skill. Now we have Spike Lee's latest joint (I've always loved that term), BlacKkKlansman, an amazingly stylized … Continue reading Very Fine People On Only One Side – BlacKkKlansman
I Actually Paid To See This 