News Rick on 30 Dec 2007
John Sayles’ Honeydripper opened in New York and Los Angeles to mixed reviews. Stephen Holden of the New York Times found Sayles’ myth- and archetype-making machinery falling flat:
“‘Honeydripper’ is agreeable, well-intentioned and very, very slow. Sadly, it illustrates the difference between an archetype and a stereotype. When the first falls flat, it turns into [...]
Analysis & Commentary and Review Rick on 29 Dec 2007
Randomness—and it’s handmaiden nothingness—looms large in Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest film No Country for Old Men. From the opening shots of empty space to the abrupt cut to black at its end, No Country for Old Men relentlessly portrays its consequences and effects. This is most explicit in bizarre games of chance between [...]
News Rick on 27 Dec 2007
Did you know there was a National Film Registry? I didn’t, until I read about here it at GreenCine. Seems that under the provisions of the National Film Preservation Act of 1992,
“each year the Librarian of Congress, with advice from the National Film Preservation Board, names 25 films to the National Film [...]
News Rick on 25 Dec 2007
As a prologue to her year-end top-ten list, Manohla Dargis of the New York Times writes
“THE whole point of a Top 10 list, a friend recently scolded me, is to number them. (I was declining to do so.) My friend was wrong, but only because Top 10 lists are artificial exercises, assertions of critical ego, [...]
Analysis & Commentary Rick on 23 Dec 2007
By my estimation, Sir Ridley Scott has made two of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time. I’m talking, of course, about Alien and Blade Runner. Whatever misanthropic, bloated epics he’s made since then–see Kingdom of Heaven–I’ll always love him for that.
And now, Blade Runner is available in a shiny new, 25th Anniversary [...]
News Rick on 21 Dec 2007
It’s been a twisty, turny time, my precious, but it’s all come out ok in the end.
Well, sorta. After three years of wrangling and fighting and back-biting, Peter Jackson and New Line Pictures have finally agreed to go ahead with the Hobbit together, with Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh producing. It’s uncertain [...]
Analysis & Commentary Rick on 20 Dec 2007
Sean Nelson has a list of the ten worst movie endings that’s a hoot. My favorite is his hilarious diss of Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi:
“One word: Ewoks. A few more: Ewoks dancing and singing on the forest moon of Endor to celebrate the destruction of the [...]
Analysis & Commentary and Federico Fellini Rick on 16 Dec 2007
Fellini kind of grows on you, I think. Not only between movies, as you learn more about what makes him tick, but as each individual film unspools before your eyes. The first one of his films I saw was La Strada, and I didn’t get it. At least not at first [...]
Analysis & Commentary Rick on 14 Dec 2007
Welcome to the new Coosa Creek Mambo, ported over from Blogger to WordPress. I’ve installed WordPress here at my domain, CoosaCreek.org. The idea is to provide a community of blogs centered around the arts, with a Southeastern accent. Installing WordPress in this way is a sight more flexible than either the [...]
Review Rick on 08 Dec 2007
Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is a very bad man; in the opening minutes alone of No Country for Old Men he dispatches two men with chilling nonchalance. He kills offhandedly, almost without thought, but it nevertheless means something to him, although just what that is, is never made clear. As he strangles a deputy [...]
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