Boogie Nights (1997), the sophomore feature from Paul Thomas Anderson, is a surprisingly vibrant, funny, and at times quite warm story of a dysfunctional filmmaking family in the adult film industry of the late 1970s. Partially inspired by the life of porno star John Holmes, it stars Burt Reynolds as a quiet but firm director […]
In the 2000s, Will Ferrell had an enviable run of hit comedies. To my mind, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) is the funniest of the batch. Set in the NASCAR culture, Ferrell plays a race car driver with two first names who outraces his own intellect in a comedy that features neither […]
The Aviator (2004), Martin Scorsese’s epic biography of the life of Howard Hughes, is his love-letter to the old-Hollywood bio-pic. This is high-style filmmaking wrapped up in a tormented hero whose soaring flights of greatness are matched by the mortal pull of his devils, which Scorsese establishes (perhaps too patly) in a childhood prologue bathed […]
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) is based on one of the more obscure Marvel Comics to get the big screen treatment, but everything about the film suggests a filmmaker trying to recapture the sense of energy and color and sheer fun of Star Wars and the pop space opera. That’s a pretty good marriage and […]
Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos describes his English language debut The Lobster (2015) as his film about love (following Dogtooth, his film on life, and Alps, on death). Which is not necessarily to call it a love story. It is, in its own way, but it just as much about the social expectations of love and […]
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) is one of the funniest films that Will Ferrell ever made. Set in the NASCAR culture, Ferrell is a race car driver with two first names who outraces his own intellect in a comedy that features neither a ballad nor a single night spent in Talladega. It […]
I hate to think that When Marnie Was There may be the last film to come out of Japan’s Studio Ghibli, the great animation studio created by filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away). Miyazaki didn’t direct Marnie—Studio Ghibli animator-turned director Hiromasa Yonebayashi helms this lovely tale—but the studio’s dedication to the art of hand […]
