Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  4   Every once in a while throughout the history of popular art, it seems like a minimalist movement comes along that enables a few individuals of marginal talent (and a particular brand of salesmanship) to hop on the bandwagon and capture the attention of the czars ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?): 4 Writer/director J.C. Chandor burst onto the scene with Margin Call (2011), which dramatized a 24-hour period in 2008 when the major players at a New York brokerage firm realized (or could no longer ignore) that they had built their house of cards on snake oil.  ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  7    On April 7, 1775, English writer Samuel Johnson reportedly uttered the words, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”  Put in the proper historical context, Johnson probably meant the other guy’s brand of patriotism.  And of course, Johnson was posthumously diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome – a ... Read More »

10. Blue Ruin.  This deftly-constructed deconstruction of the Hatfields and McCoys narrative seemingly came out of nowhere.  Jeremy Saulnier had previously written and directed one feature film – the obscure horror/comedy Murder Party (2007) – in which former classmate and stay-at-home dad, Macon Blair, had a supporting role.  And yet, with Blue Ruin, Saulnier’s eye is as subtle and evocative ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  8 The screen is black.  There is the sound of a single wooden drumstick striking a snare.   Then again.  Then again, faster.  And faster.  A train is leaving the station … “One night in 1937, a teenage musician called Charlie Parker joined a queue of ... Read More »

In one late scene in Mockingjay-Part 1, while confined to an underground bunker, Jennifer Lawrence’s now familiar action hero, Katniss, eyes a target and cocks her bow to test out a new arrow, but she is abruptly stopped by this franchise’s representation of Q (Jeffrey Wright), who warns “let’s not shoot those in here.”  That pretty much sums up this feature-length ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  6 In the 60 years since Collier’s magazine first published Jack Finney’s serial, The Body Snatchers, there have been four film adaptations, as the pod people narrative seems to have a “Shakespearean mobility from one period to the next” (Mike Davis, author of The Monster at ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?): 2 As the modern god (or devil) of middlebrow cinema, writer/director Christopher Nolan’s primary strength (or weakness) is his penchant for abbreviating the narrative beats.  And this aspect is indispensable (or overdone) in his latest film, Interstellar, where time is relative and characters need to traverse galaxies ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?): 4    After any unnecessary remake, an above-average biopic, and an adaptation of a half-baked short story, it’s damn good to see director David Fincher back on his game – or I should say, The Game (1997), because that’s Gone Girl‘s closest touchstone to any of ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  7 A husband who works 60 hours a week to provide a nice house for his wife and private school for his children might be the last person to whom we would apply the traditional label of “sloth.”  But at this point in the history of the traditional ... Read More »