10.  Holy Motors (written and directed by Leos Carax, and starring Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Kylie Minogue, and Eva Mendes).  At the outset, I feel obliged to say that this top 10 list tends to reward ambition more than it probably should.  In this respect, Holy Motors generally defies comparison to any other film released this year.  Director Carax follows “working actor” Lavant through a single day consisting of ... Read More »

Having just battled through the difficulty of writing a post about my favorite Stephen King horror adaptations, I was dismayed by several recent reviews for Cloud Atlas (2012) – the Wachowski siblings’ adaptation of David Mitchell’s best-selling novel.  I have not read this novel, but I feel like I have.  I mean, I am now well aware of the differences in narrative structure between the film and the novel, thanks ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilerly is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?)  3  “Middlebrow” is typically used as a derogatory term by the snobby to describe an attempt to create something that is both broadly accessible and worthy of artistic merit.  Personally, I do not think there is a damn thing wrong with straddling this illusory fence – particularly in the case of Cloud ... Read More »