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 […]
Aaron Eckhart is the glib, proudly obfuscating “Yuppie Mephistopheles” (in the words of his detractors) tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor in Thank You For Smoking (2006), Jason Reitman’s wickedly witty adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s novel. He’s also our hero. With brazen righteousness, Naylor zealously defends the right of “defenseless” corporate giants’ to market products that, when […]
The Wind Rises (Japan, 2013) is a very different kind of feature from Hayao Miyazaki, the beloved filmmaker and animation legend famed for his lush, ambitious, inventive fantasies and mythical adventures. It was a passion project for the director and he chose it as his fitting swan song, a final feature before retiring from filmmaking […]
“Do you have to be miserable to be funny?” That’s the question that comedian and actor Kevin Pollak poses to his fellow performers in the documentary Misery Loves Comedy, his directorial debut. It’s a fair question and a serious one—the film is, after all, dedicated to Robin Williams, who took his own life while Pollak […]
