Author Archive

Gangster Number 1

Written by Matt Zoller Seitz on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

When a film comes up aces in pretty much every department–acting, writing, photography, sound, production design, editing, costumes–and still seems average, you can’t shake the feeling that the filmmakers and actors have, in some horribly convoluted way, wasted their efforts. That feeling is conjured by Gangster Number 1, a stylish, nasty, curiously opaque crime picture
[ read more... ]

Be the first to comment on this post

Windtalkers; Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Written by Matt Zoller Seitz on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

After the minor cultural earthquake of Saving Private Ryan, Hollywood’s big guns are falling all over themselves to revisit World War II. Who can blame them? Creatively, World War II pictures offer action filmmakers the best of all possible worlds: directors get to play with tanks and planes and eviscerate bushels of enemy soldiers (the
[ read more... ]

Be the first to comment on this post

Classic Films Rescued

Written by Matt Zoller Seitz on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Starting this Sat., May 18, the American Museum of the Moving Image is running "Rescued Treasures: Restored films from American Archives and Studios," featuring a collection of restored and preserved films that were once thought incomplete, unprojectable or lost. The timing couldn’t be more right; the series starts the same week as Attack of the
[ read more... ]

Be the first to comment on this post

Dogtown and Z-Boys

Written by Matt Zoller Seitz on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

In the 1970s, Southern California ruled the world. Everybody bowed to its golden aura; across America and around the globe, hair became feathered, button-up shirts refused to close, collars grew longer and sharper. Suntanning changed from a pastime to an obsession, and cocaine was transformed from a high-end, hardcore street drug into a party favor.
[ read more... ]

Be the first to comment on this post

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man

Written by Matt Zoller Seitz on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Directed by Sam Raimi A marvelous sequence early in Spider-Man finds teenage hero Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), recently bitten by a genetically altered spider and cursed with fantastic powers, sitting alone in his bedroom with pens and drawing paper, trying to figure out what sort of costume his wall-crawling alter-ego should wear. It’s too early
[ read more... ]

Be the first to comment on this post

..