Month: January 2014

The Wolf of Wall Street: Scorsese howling into the void?

Apart from perhaps Steven Spielberg, the career of Martin Scorsese is unparalleled in the last fifty years of Hollywood.

Not only does his contribution to cinema define an entire genre – name a modern crime film that doesn’t owe some debt to Goodfellas – he consistently seems to take on only the films that he wants to make, only the projects that interest him.…

August: Osage County is an overstuffed goose of a family drama

 

August: Osage County opens amidst the hay bales of the American Midwest and with the words of T.S. Eliot – “Life is very long”.

The truest expression of this stage-play adaptation lies in the cramped confines of the Westen family’s plantation-style home and the words of W.B.…

Out of the Furnace shows us the crucible of the impoverished Mid-Atlantic US

 

Above a dying mining town somewhere in the Rust Belt of the United States, one of the most talented actors of his generation, bearded and disheveled, pauses with a rifle to take a shot.

A deer is in his scopes.

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American Hustle might be my favorite film of 2013

 

AKA The David O. Russell Reunion; Batman, Lois Lane, Rocket Raccoon, & Mystique: The Movie; or, Golden Globes For Everyone!

I don’t make a habit of using this space to gush over how much I love one film or another.

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