Film
MISSION-ARY POSITION: TOM CRUISE IS THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS IN “ROGUE NATION”
And that image is one we’ll return to, time and again, throughout Rogue Nation—Cruise’s world-conquering smirk.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY: SAMUEL FULLER’S TAKE ON THE PRIMARY CONTRADICTION OF AMERICAN LIFE
Fuller’s movie recognizes (with astutely visualized clarity) the primary contradiction of American life: Racial identity is a false construct, but one that no individual can ever transcend.
SILENT KNIGHT: PERPETRATORS OF STATE-SPONSORED GENOCIDE ARE PUSHED FURTHER INWARD IN OPPENHEIMER’S LATEST
Evil cannot always be comprehended. But it can be filmed, and it can be seen.
FAKE LA MOTTA: ON THE FALSENESS OF “SOUTHPAW”
As Billy Hope, the Jake La Motta-esque boxer in Antoine Fuqua’s Southpaw, Jake Gyllenhaal runs so hot that the thermometer breaks.
HAWKISH: HOWARD HAWKS’ SCREWBALL COMEDIES ARE MARKED BY ROMANTIC ANARCHY
The curiously celibate romantic action comedies of Edgar Wright and Peter Bogdanovich, the rhyming wordplay of Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson...they all owe their existence to screwballs.
LA PLAYS ITSELF: ON THE COMEDIC ETHNOGRAPHY OF “TANGERINE”
And what emerges is a document of the Hollywood that Hollywood declines to show us. Tangerine becomes a critique of surfaces themselves: The LA we know from movies and TV, revealed to be as false as the idea that anatomy dictates gender.
MAGIC HOUR: SOME THOUGHTS ON MAGIC MIKE XXL
You don’t watch it, you ride it.
ZOOM-ZOOM: ON THE FILMS OF EDGAR WRIGHT
The beauty of these films isn’t always what they say—it’s how they sing.
COME BACK, AMY
No matter which performance of hers remains closest to your heart—the studio-perfected bass of “You Know I'm No Good” or the mascara-smeared flair of her Glastonbury set—Amy will reset your appreciation of her work and, more importantly, of her as a person.