It seems that every director with a distinctive, challenging style eventually reigns in their impulses and makes a more conventional feature for a major studio.  Not too long after David Lynch surprised everybody with The Elephant Man, David Cronenberg made the Stephen King adaptation The Dead Zone.  How strange to think both directors also turned […]

Prior to finally seeing this movie, the full extent of what I knew about it was this exchange in The Fisher King: Customer [looking in shock at cover of videotape]: “Ordinary Peepholes?” Clerk: “It’s a big-titty, spread-cheeky kind of thing” It turns out Ordinary People isn’t a big-titty, spread-cheeky kind of thing, but the Best […]

“You’ve told me this story before” That line is spoken by the 20-something arm candy of Peter Fonda’s character.  “But I don’t mind if you tell it to me again.” This is a pretty apt summary of my feelings about The Limey, Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 movie that shows us a story we seen in many […]

A Lars von Trier musical starring Bjork. Let’s parse that summary to show why Dancer In The Dark should be approached with some trepidation.  If there is one thing I can say about the entirety of von Trier’s filmography, that would be it is provocative. Other than that, there are few consistencies to his work.  […]

I cannot overstate how important the band The Velvet Underground has been in my life. Almost immediately upon my first exposure to them, I strongly identified with a perceived artistic truth and purity in their music.  Something deeply resonated with me despite having never done illegal drugs or engaged in any less-than-conventional lifestyle choices.  On […]