Summer of Sam: A Phoned in History (Part One)

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/30/10 10:04am
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The range with which Spike Lee is able to tell a story is pretty generally startling. That being said, his work during the eighties and the first half of the nineties all carry with it a similarity mostly due to subject matter – an afrocentricity that the director alone represents in Hollywood. Setting his work in various parts of New York work to unify Lee’s efforts. And for basically that reason alone, Summer of Sam (1999) makes sense within the director’s other efforts.

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Inception: A Film for People Who Aren't Intellectuals, but Think They Are

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/29/10 6:20pm
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There’re a few different questions people ask each other when first meeting: Where are you from, what kind of music do you listen to and what kind of movies do you like. There’s obviously a pompous answer for each as well as one designed to make the speaker sound as intelligent or well informed as possible. In the realm of film, saying something like “I watch movies that keep me on the edge of my seat,” not only fails to denote what kind of movies you like, but unwittingly makes the speaker sound like a lame advertisement.

Either way, Inception, directed by the omni-obtuse Christopher Nolan, seems to be made for just that sort of person.

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He Got Game: Fathers and Sons Play Ball (Part Two)

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/26/10 10:32am
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Along the way to earning his early parole, Denzel Washington’s Jake character ends up becoming involved with a hooker who counts as his neighbor. And while the hooker with a heart of gold thing should be well below Spike Lee’s mental prowess, it seems that He Got Game is attempting to critique women in society.

With Jake accidentally killing his wife, she should be seen as a martyr of sorts considering her death stemmed from intervening in a fight between father and son. So, she’s a good one, as is the hooker Jake befriends.

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The Sorcerer's Apprentice

By msarko on 7/24/10 9:55pm
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I don't go to McDonald's for delicious, nutritious food. If I ever go there, it's because I want something fast, inconsequential and horrible in all those ways we tell ourselves we don't like, even if we do. In the same sense, I don't go to Disney movies for inventive, artistically meaningful cinema. Just like everyone who ever complained that McDonald's isn't healthy, everyone who knocks Disney for making empty, pandering spectacles is really missing the point. That's why The Sorcerer's Apprentice isn't exactly deserving of all its lukewarm reviews. It never makes any pretensions to being anything but an amusement park ride, so it's not exactly worthwhile to compare it to the better movies of the summer.



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He Got Game: Fathers and Sons Play Ball (Part One)

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/23/10 5:25pm
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When Spike Lee released He Got Game in 1998 basketball was already moving towards becoming the most popular sport in the States. The director, understanding this and probably feeling that it was a deserved shift away from baseball (which is horrendously boring to watch on tv), crafted a narrative intending to display the finer points of the game while still attempting to levy some social and political criticism on the country that birthed him.

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Clockers: Stomach Problems and Drugs in the Projects (Part Two)

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/23/10 4:16am
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It’s possible that Strike’s stomach troubles stem from his day to day business and his eventual necessity to knock off another drug dealer in order to advance his career. Again, though, director Spike Lee is never heavy handed enough to state the impetus for these gut rumblings.

Assuming it’s Strike’s conscious getting at him, a scene deeper into the film where the drug dealer runs of a younger would-be dealer makes a bit of sense. Of course, the man’s belly doesn’t magically recover. So, we’re all left to wonder what it actually meant.

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"Vampires Suck" Ain't That The Truth!

By dfunzy on 7/22/10 9:43am
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Trailer Review

"Vampires Suck," a spoof of the "Twilight" movies -- and I thought the "Twilight" flicks were spoofs. They can't be taken seriously as vampire movies!  The "Vampires Suck," movie is directed by: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer -- They needed two dudes to direct? The cast includes no one who I recognize: Matt Lanter, Jenn Proske, Chris Riggi. That's not a bad thing. New faces, you know? I expect to see new faces in horror movies, and in horror movie spoofs. But wait. The "Twilight" films aren't really horror movies. They are horrible movies, hybrids of horrible horror movies and sugar soda pop romance movies.

"Vampires Suck," movie is a comedy, says them -- the producers. Well, aren't spoofs comedies? And some are also funny.

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Clockers: Stomach Problems and Drugs in the Projects (Part One)

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/20/10 4:15pm
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Working from a Richard Price novel with the same name, Spike Lee’s Clockers appears to be the proper antecedent to The Wire, which Price had a hand in as well. As with any adaptation, it’d be difficult to aptly compare the film and the book seeing as each is housed within the realm of its own form. A book is not the same thing as a film and vice versa.

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A Christopher Nolan Primer

By msarko on 7/19/10 7:45pm
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At 40 years old, director Christopher Nolan is something of a wunderkind in the industry. With just seven full-length features under his belt, it's fairly stunning how many of them are among the best and most inventive films of the past decade. His most recent movie, the sci-fi noir thriller Inception has been getting almost universally positive reviews, so it looks like Nolan isn't planning on slowing down any time soon. He's got another sequel in his wildly successful reboot of Batman and he's also slated to give the update treatment to the Superman franchise as well. Before diving into Christopher Nolan's world of heroes and the darkest recesses of the human soul, here's a quick jaunt through his body of work.



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Crooklyn: Through the Gaze of bell hooks (Part Two)

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/19/10 6:46am
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Woody Carmichale, the assumed head of the household, enjoys bringing treats – cake, ice cream and candy – home for the kids as well as dumping mountains of sugar into his beverages. Of course, it’d be troublesome to have your husband spend your money on food you don’t think your kids need. But hooks extrapolates that Woody’s tendency towards sweet foods hints at a drug problem, although, she concedes, it’s not shown on screen. hooks doesn’t specify what drug she’s referencing – weed, narcotics or what. But her guessing at Woody’s drug use seems to perpetuate black male stereotypes more than the film denigrates female contributions to the household in black culture.

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