Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (Bat Segundo interview with Bissell)
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
Film Archive
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Review: Inception (2010)
Posted on July 15, 2010 | 12 CommentsInception is reliant on perfunctory globetrotting, lights dangling atop ceilings, and repetitive amber hues for its "look." It does contain an admittedly intricate plot structure, which cannot be immediately discounted. But when a film feels as dead as a greedy investment banker's onyx soul, one isn't exactly enlivened to clap. -
Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009)
Posted on July 9, 2010 | 1 CommentThe problem here was that the filmmakers haven't considered the right item to pimp. Aside from an unidentified pizza box tossed against a kitchen wall, there was no indication of Billy's Pan Pizza maintaining its essential role. -
Review: [REC] 2 (2009)
Posted on June 27, 2010 | No CommentsJaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza really love making movies -- in a way that seems to have eluded the pretentious and the avaricious. Review of the long-awaited horror sequel. -
The Bat Segundo Show: John Waters
Posted on June 22, 2010 | 2 CommentsIn this jam-packed 40 minute radio interview, the filmmaker discusses taxes, Leslie Van Houten, 3-D porn, horror, William Castle, and numerous other subjects. -
Review: Cyrus (2010)
Posted on June 21, 2010 | 5 CommentsMumblecore filmmakers Jay and Mark Duplass get a bigger budget in this tale of middle-aged lovers and prevaricating sons. The review includes a strange encounter with a marketing guy. -
Review: Finding Bliss (2010)
Posted on June 14, 2010 | 8 CommentsIt’s become increasingly impossible for any movie, whether mainstream or independent, to depict the porn industry with anything approaching accuracy. Show a penis — even a flaccid one — and... -
Review: The Karate Kid (2010)
Posted on June 10, 2010 | 9 CommentsAge has always been a dicey variable in the Karate Kid universe. In The Karate Kid, Part III — perhaps the most preposterous entry in the series — the 28-year-old... -
Hobo with a Shotgun
Posted on April 19, 2010 | 1 Comment -
The Bat Segundo Show: Juan José Campanella & Allison Amend II
Posted on April 16, 2010 | No CommentsJuan José Campanella and Allison Amend both appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #331. Mr. Campanella is most recently the co-writer and director of The Secret in Their Eyes, which... -
Review: Clash of the Titans (2010)
Posted on April 2, 2010 | 3 CommentsEven as a lad, I was not a fan of the 1981 version of Clash of the Titans. A grade school teacher, detecting some faint whiff of precocity, suggested that... -
On the Cannibal Film Genre
Posted on March 31, 2010 | 1 CommentThere’s some more content coming (indeed, there will be a good deal of content published tomorrow). But in the meantime, I feel compelled to direct your attention to this morning’s... -
New Directors/New Films: Beautiful Darling (2010)
Posted on March 9, 2010 | 1 Comment[This is the second in a series of dispatches relating to the New Directors/New Films series, running between March 24, 2010 and April 4, 2010 at MOMA and the Film... -
New Directors/New Films: Amer (2009)
Posted on March 8, 2010 | No Comments[This is the first in a series of dispatches relating to the New Directors/New Films series, running between March 24, 2010 and April 4, 2010 at MOMA and the Film... -
Review: Cop Out (2010)
Posted on February 25, 2010 | 4 CommentsAs suggested by Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures, Steven Soderbergh initiated his “one for us, one for them” plunge into the Hollywood ocean with 1998′s Out of Sight. Richard... -
Review: Happy Tears (2010)
Posted on February 21, 2010 | 3 CommentsIt is difficult to muster much enthusiasm for Mitchell Lichtenstein’s latest film, Happy Tears — in part because Tamara Jenkins gave us the similarly-themed The Savages three years ago, a... -
Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall; What’s the Biggest Cliche of Them All?
Posted on February 9, 2010 | 1 Comment -
The Bat Segundo Show: Christian Berger
Posted on February 5, 2010 | No CommentsChristian Berger recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #321. Berger is the cinematographer for The White Ribbon and was, most recently, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.... -
Paul Fischer: The Unpardonable Hack Who Charmed His Fellow Junketeers
Posted on February 5, 2010 | 2 CommentsThere was once a time — before the Internet, or perhaps not at all — in which film critics conducted themselves with something approximating journalistic standards. It was never very... -
Woody Allen’s Stalking Annie
Posted on January 19, 2010 | No Comments -
The Most Important Absence
Posted on January 14, 2010 | No CommentsThe above film, “The Most Important Absence,” is the first one I’ve made in 2010. And I intend to put together several more of them. All clips were taken from... -
Review: Daybreakers (2010)
Posted on January 8, 2010 | 3 CommentsThe vampire film has needed a kick in the ass for quite some time. Popular audiences have endured the emo complacency of the Twilight films, suffered through the soporific bastardization... -
Review: Youth in Revolt (2009)
Posted on January 8, 2010 | No CommentsMichael Cera, a reedy actor known for grilling his thin mix of thespic tricks into crepe-like pipsqueaks quietly braying the predictable coups de foudre, is not necessarily a man to... -
The Bat Segundo Show: Michael Haneke
Posted on December 30, 2009 | 2 CommentsMichael Haneke appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #316. Mr. Haneke is most recently the director of The White Ribbon, which opens in theaters on December 30th. The Bat Segundo... -
Review: Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009)
Posted on December 30, 2009 | 1 CommentSometime ago, I attended a screening for Did You Hear About the Morgans? I apologize for the lateness of this review. I have been occupied with more important things, such... -
RIP Dan O’Bannon
Posted on December 18, 2009 | No Comments -
Review: Nordwand (2008)
Posted on December 15, 2009 | 3 CommentsIt’s safe to say that Nordwand (known as North Face in the States and presently hitting the film festival circuit, to be followed by a rolled out release) is a... -
Review: A Single Man (2009)
Posted on December 14, 2009 | 2 CommentsColin Firth’s swooning fan base has long accepted the unlikely heartthrob as an endearing bumbler. Firth has often played the sensitive (and quietly sensible) romantic populating both mainstream romantic fare... -
Review: The Road (2009)
Posted on November 23, 2009 | 2 CommentsIn 2006, an incalculable number of retroussé-nosed snobs — most possessing little understanding or appreciation of speculative fiction — were justly charmed by Cormac McCarthy’s YA novel, The Road. It... -
Review: The Missing Person (2009)
Posted on November 20, 2009 | 3 CommentsNoah Buschel’s The Missing Person (opening in New York today) is, as the title intimates, yet another entry from the Hey, I’ve Got a Clever Twist! school of filmmaking. Now... -
Review: 2012 (2009)
Posted on November 11, 2009 | 13 CommentsRoland Emmerich’s 2012 is slightly better than Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow — the hack director’s two previous opuses involving mass devastation. But that’s a bit like saying...