If one were to go to the movies and, sight unseen, decide to buy a ticket for a film called “Armageddon Time,” they would likely expect superhero spandex or a Michael Bay orgy of explosions. A title like that echoes the likes of “Infinity War,” “Endgame” and “The Multiverse of Madness,” and evokes the literal Biblical apocalypse. Yet after watching a quiet opening credit sequence that climaxes with “written and directed by James Gray,” that might change expectations quite a bit. It’s safe to say that Gray (“Ad Astra,” “The Immigrant” and “We Own the Night”) is not the sort…
Author: Steve Katz
Separate the art from the artist. It’s a refrain that has become more and more relevant to our culture as we seek to reckon with bad people who make good art. The Roman Polanskis, James Francos and Kevin Spaceys of the world leave behind a tarnished legacy after being outed for varying levels of caddishness, making how we view past and potential future projects to which they are attached a contentious and challenging prospect. For David O. Russell, a director who was at the forefront of high-profile Oscar contenders in the first half of the 2010s, the reckoning has come…
If you are even vaguely tuned in to the movie discourse, you’ve probably heard of “Blonde,” the long-gestating adaptation of the Joyce Carol Oates novel of the same name that takes a fictionalized look at the life of Marilyn Monroe. Written and directed by Andrew Dominik and originally set to star Naomi Watts more than a decade ago, the film finally solidified around rising star Ana de Armas at Netflix approximately three years ago. Enough controversy has existed around the book, which hinted at some of the wilder conspiracies about Monroe’s life while hiding behind the shield of biographical fiction,…
Time has marched forward, the sun has made its way across the horizon on a day that ends in “y,” and Disney has made yet another live-action retelling of one of their classic animated features. Since Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” made obscene amounts of money at the global box office, the biggest movie studio on Earth has begun greenlighting more and more new versions of old tales, nearly all of which have continued to pay dividends. With the launch of Disney+ in 2019, the need for new content has become insatiable, and their latest entry once again weds Tom…
Few actors in our current lifetime are as infamous as Nicolas Cage, a man who comes from Hollywood royalty and has found himself occupying every aspect of the movie star spectrum over the course of his career. For a guy with a Best Actor Oscar, he sure has built up a reputation for unreliably quirky or downright insane performances in blockbusters and direct-to-video stinkers alike. That reputation, and a desire to never stop working as long as the price was right, was somewhat famously built on the back of a need to pay rather large tax bills generated by comically…
For a guy like Robert Eggers, the concept of mainstream filmmaking doesn’t seem like it holds all that much water. The New England-based writer/director stuck pretty closely to his roots for his first two features, “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse,” both of which are set in the region, albeit at times that modern New Englanders would barely recognize. Both films were also quite insular, with small casts and minimal locations, which is the sort of filmmaking that you can do on a relatively small budget. He also leaned heavily on historical accounts to try and make the dialogue and accents…
The avant-garde duo of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, better known as Daniels, made quite a name for themselves with “Swiss Army Man,” their 2016 directorial debut about a suicidal man and the reanimated farting corpse that saved his life. Those who saw the film know it’s about a lot more than that, and the silliness served as a misdirection belying a powerful message about the lies we tell to ourselves and others that are more convenient than the truth, and that humans are only as strong as their connections to others make them. Plenty of people, perhaps understandably, didn’t…
Somehow, we’ve reached the end of a second year in the midst of what seems to be a never-ending pandemic, although one that — with the help of vaccines and booster shots — has at the very least allowed the opportunity to return to the theater for those of us who are comfortable enough to do so. This is the year that saw the release of so many movies that were promised to us last year, whether it’s “F9” or “West Side Story” or “A Quiet Place Part II,” and perhaps because of that, I found myself spoiled for choice…
My brother still calls “Macbeth” the Scottish Play. He hasn’t acted in a decade, but even to this day, even nowhere near a stage, he won’t say the name out loud. Whether “Macbeth” is Shakespeare’s most famous and lasting work is up for debate, but the superstition surrounding it, the litany of phrases and idioms it pioneered that last to this day, and the countless film adaptations stretching from 1908 to Justin Kurzel’s 2015 adaptation starring Michael Fassbender (to say nothing of indirect adaptations like “Scotland, PA” or “Throne of Blood”) certainly points to its lasting impact on Western culture.…
There’s no question that Adam McKay is the sort of liberal that the Fox News sector loves to hate. His Hollywood connections, the sneer with which he skewers rampant capitalism and right-wing politicians, and his outspoken interview style paint the perfect picture of the demon left that the channel’s anchors are out to convince their audience is coming to take all they hold dear. After taking on finance and subprime mortgages in “The Big Short” and the George W. Bush era in “Vice,” his next film seeks to cast a far wider net. And with that net comes a gaggle…