The Zero Theorem: Everything Adds Up to Nothing
The Zero Theorem may be one of Gilliam’s lesser successes, but it’s built on something, towards something — and that’s clearly better than nothing.
Category Archives: Active Observation
Is The Abyss Abysmal?
Everyone in The Abyss, everyone watching The Abyss should logically be dead.
Boyhood, In Which Time Is The Star
Richard Linklater gathers up time and turns it into a movie you’re going to have to see.
A Hard Day’s Night Is Really Good, And Other Stunning Beatles Revelations
I think this band could really make it big.
Gremlins Will Eat Your Face
Joe Dante’s 1984 Christmas movie, Gremlins, is the funniest, bleakest, most horrific kids’ movie ever made. In fact it may be the only horror movie for kids I can think of.
Going Ape #8: Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
The apes return, and I’m sad to report that it’s less than it’s cracked up to be.
Going Back To Back To The Future
One needn’t go very far out on a limb to say that Back To The Future is a fun movie. You could say it without so much as climbing a tree in the first place.
Heathers Holds Up
You can’t change the course of teen culture. All you can do is survive — and pick your friends more carefully.
I Like Two-Lane Blacktop
Do you like it too? Or do you think you might want to like it? Come on inside and we’ll have a nice chat about it.
Going Ape #7: Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Rise of The Planet of The Apes is the best Apes movie since Beneath, if not the original. It does what I wish so many other summer movies would do: tell a straightforward story in a brisk 90 minutes centered on a character you care about.
Snowpiercer: Better Than A Poke In The Eye With A Sharp Stick
Snowpiercer’s failing is that it’s simultaneously overwritten and underwritten. It’s a blatant political allegory whose obvious points are muddled and vague. If you can imagine such a thing. And yet…
Let’s Spend the Night Together and Film It
Mick looks angry, Keith looks like he’s come to fix the sink, Wood is just joshing, Wyman resembles a cardboard stand-up, and Watts like he’s running sums in his head.
Trapped With Idiots In Room 237
In which a documentary narrated by a number of loons describing their pet theories on what Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is really about is given some thought.
The Rover Makes Its Bed of Bones
As far as depicting a world gone completely tits up goes, you’d be hard pressed to top the work of Australians.