I think the best reason to applaud the ascendance of the Netflix and Amazon TV and film studios is their willingness to fund the ambitious projects of artists like the Wachowskis (Sense8), Jill Soloway (Transparent) and Aziz Ansari (Master of None) – and now Bong Joon Ho, who directed the insane, groundbreaking Snowpiercer, as well…
dvd of the week You could call Swiss Army Man a cross between Weekend at Bernie’s and Castaway. It’s as bizarre and puerile as Bernie’s and aspires to Castaway’s depth; Swiss Army Man uses the insanity of its premise to create a powerfully symbolic fever dream about the power of friendship to heal the wounds…
As we were walking into Swiss Army Man, I discovered that my friend Adam, who I’d brought to the movie, didn’t know anything about what we were about to see. I giggled, because I knew that the movie was about a guy stranded on a deserted island who befriends a farting corpse. Adam was going…
Hugh Jackman and Paul Dano in Prisoners dvd of the week The daughters of both Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard) are kidnapped, and when Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) doesn’t work fast enough, Keller takes the law into his own hands. This is mostly at the expense of the mildly retarded Alex…
Prisoners About half way through Denis Villeneuve’s haunting, absorbing and morally problematic Prisoners, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard) are screaming at each other. Keller is insisting that he knows that Alex Jones (Paul Dano) is the man who has kidnapped and hidden his and Franklin’s young daughters; Franklin, in tears, keeps…
