Monthly Archives: October 2019

Review: Climax

Posted on October 31, 2019 by philipbrasor

As the poster boy for post-millennial transgressive French cinema, Gaspar Noe has a reputation that precedes him by miles, and while his newest outrage does nothing to confound that estimation, its musical pedigree makes it somewhat less distasteful, at least … Continue reading →

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Review: Van Gogh, Of Wheat Fields and Clouded Skies

Posted on October 26, 2019 by philipbrasor

One surprising thing I learned while watching Julian Schnabel’s movie about the last year of Vincent Van Gogh’s life was just how many paintings he produced. Sometimes he would finish a dozen in a week. This sort of superhuman output … Continue reading →

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Review: Gemini Man

Posted on October 25, 2019 by philipbrasor

The term “high concept” normally refers to movies with memorable plot hooks specifically married to casting or directing decisions. Gemini Man is thus high concept in the most literal way. Ang Lee, a respected director of nuanced dramatic fare and … Continue reading →

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Review: La verite

Posted on October 16, 2019 by philipbrasor

Hirokazu Kore-eda is Japan’s master of the middlebrow, and in that regard Shoplifters, the movie that cemented his international cred, is an outlier. Most of what has sustained his career in Japan is what can be safely called domestic potboilers—tales … Continue reading →

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Review: Upgrade

Posted on October 14, 2019 by philipbrasor

Leigh Whannell’s seeming homage to David Cronenberg pits an analog holdover named Grey (Logan Marshall-Green), who likes to listen to blues music on vinyl and rebuild classic cars, against the already arrived cyborg technology that rules the rest of his … Continue reading →

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Media Mix, Oct. 13, 2019

Posted on October 13, 2019 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, which is about the development and marketing of 4K and 8K television sets. I say “set” in the traditional sense, meaning an appliance that incorporates both a display and a tuner, though many modern consumer … Continue reading →

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Review: Crawl

Posted on October 12, 2019 by philipbrasor

Damsel-in-distress movies still exist, but these days women in peril tend to be the heroes who defeat malevolent forces rather than their victims; though in many cases the deadly force is not malevolent, but merely hungry. In this vein, the … Continue reading →

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Review: Yesterday

Posted on October 11, 2019 by philipbrasor

The most interesting thing about this pop star fantasy is that the Beatles estate agreed to license so many songs. McCartney I can understand, since he was always the band’s most fervent champion regardless of how his beloved “tunes” were … Continue reading →

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Review: Joker

Posted on October 2, 2019 by philipbrasor

Todd Phillips’ odd superhero gloss has a lot of distractions built into it, the most obvious one being its non-relationship to the Batman franchise (or franchises, depending on how doctrinnaire you are) as a feature that is only tangentially relevant … Continue reading →

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