Wagner at the Movies
Books could be written, and probably have been, about the likely hundreds of uses of Richard Wagner‘s music in movies. People have to write books about something. (Okay, I looked it up […]
Category Archives: Active Observation
After Hours: Martin Scorsese’s Best Movie?
I know what you’re thinking, regarding the title of this post, and it is “no.” You’re thinking maybe I’ve never heard of Raging Bull or Taxi Driver or Goodfellas. You […]
In Which I Ponder Three Viewings Of Fight Club
I will say this about Fight Club: it is an interesting movie. Putting it far ahead of most of what gets made. I saw it when it first came out […]
A True-True Cloud Atlas Review Yarned Across Time and Space
Recently, your valiant Stand By For Mind Control editors attended an early screening of Cloud Atlas, the new film by the Wachowskis and Tom Twyker. We thought it would be […]
The Italian Job: What The Hell Kind of Ending Is That?
No, not that crappy remake, the original from ’69, with Michael Caine, who even back in the ‘60s managed to star in like nine movies a year, and who because […]
Children of Men: The Defining Film of The Aughts
When I first saw the trailer for Children of Men in late ’06, I thought it looked like yet another standard issue end of the world action flick. I had […]
Why Looper’s Nonsense is Intense
There has been a lot said about time travel lately, on this blog and around the web. Too much, maybe. Definitely. But you can’t stop me. And I want to […]
Looper: Dumbest Time Travel Movie Since Timecop?
Timecop, the Jean-Claude Van Damme time travel movie beloved by, er, no, sorry, forgotten by everyone, contains my favorite worst-ever time-travel-movie-moment ever, where Van Damme is brought to the warehouse […]
Looper: All Loose Ends
While it pains me greatly to say so, Looper was vastly disappointing. One of the things that I’d really come to love about Rian Johnson’s writing and directing through our Looper Prep […]
A Separation
When one is in the mood to rent a movie, it’s not often one thinks, “I would love to watch a two hour Iranian slice-of-life film,” when what one normally […]
Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master Will Drink Your Milkshake
There’s a scene early on in Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie The Master where Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), having inadvertently poisoned an old man with his dubious, self-distilled, paint-thinner-based moonshine, […]
Risky Business: I Say ‘What the Fuck’
When Risky Business ended at the Castro Theater tonight, those I watched it with started talking about how Joel—Tom Cruise’s character—was a lousy person. Everyone in the film, they said, […]
The 10 Best Woody Allen Movies
Woody Allen has been traipsing all over San Francisco lately, filming his 137th feature film, which at best will not completely suck, and at worst will completely suck. I’m sure […]
Fast Times At Ridgemont High: Weirder Than You Remember
Imagine making a movie set in high school today where one of your main characters is a 15 year old freshman girl who, in the first ten minutes, loses her […]