Martin Eden (Marcello, 2019)
When I first heard that Jack London’s political novel Martin Eden was being made as a film set in modern-day Naples, I wasn’t sure how well the book’s themes would… Continue reading "Martin Eden (Marcello, 2019)"
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Native Son (Chenal, 1951)
Is it possible for a film to be simultaneously mediocre (bordering on bad) and essential? Native Son has a lot of stuff wrong with it as a film. Wright was… Continue reading "Native Son (Chenal, 1951)"
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A Call to Spy (Pilcher, 2019)
My go-to television contrarian take for the last decade or so has been an insistence that Stana Katic more or less kept a mediocre show called Castle afloat while her… Continue reading "A Call to Spy (Pilcher, 2019)"
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Driven to Abstraction (Price, 2019)
Is it really impossible to forge a Jackson Pallock painting?
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Summer Streaming — 2020
Summerland Made In Italy Tesla Measure for Measure Creating a Character: The Moni Yakim Legacy
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Days of the Whale (Arroyave Restrepo, 2019)
The selling point for Days the Whale, at least for me, was the setting. It is set in Medellín, but it isn’t about drug traffickers. That alone makes it worth… Continue reading "Days of the Whale (Arroyave Restrepo, 2019)"
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Boys State (Moss, 2020)
“And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me / He’d grown up just like me / My boy was just like me.” — “Cats in the Cradle,”… Continue reading "Boys State (Moss, 2020)"
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Nakom (Norris & Pittman, 2016)
Nakom doesn’t pander to Western viewers. We are introduced to Iddrisu Awinzor (Jacob Ayanaba) while he is at medical school and follow him in his return to the village of… Continue reading "Nakom (Norris & Pittman, 2016)"
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Flannery (Bosco & Coffman, 2020)
When I was an undergraduate in the mid 1980s, The Chronicle of Higher Education surveyed ninety-nine literature professors, asking which works written since the end of World War II would… Continue reading "Flannery (Bosco & Coffman, 2020)"
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Greyhound (Schneider, 2020)
Tom Hanks is the selling point for Greyhound. In it, the actor — and now writer — has found a vehicle that is completely on brand. The film. like the… Continue reading "Greyhound (Schneider, 2020)"