Commentary Archives - Page 2 of 2

March 28, 2015January 26, 2018

IT FOLLOWS: Of Art and Monsters

It Follows is heralded as a film that can move horror forward, something incredible in an increasingly un-incredible genre. For certain, gone are the days of Castles, Carpenters, Cravens and Cronenbergs. Instead of Romero, today we have Roth. And instead of Powell, we have Peli. Visionaries like Herschell Gordon Lewis, Dario Argento, Alfred Hitchcock and Lucio Fulci seem so far in the past. At the same time, modern standouts, like James Wan, Neil Marshall and Adam Wingard, are drowned out by countless high-end horror remakes, which simply make glossy the last great moment in the genre, and low-end VOD movies, which can’t muster the courage to do anything as interesting as VHS-era titles.

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July 17, 2014February 17, 2018

TARGETS, Guns and the Violence Norm

I come from a gun family. There were more guns in my house than there were pieces of furniture. It wasn’t due to paranoia or even the idea of safety. No, my father simply like to hunt. And my first gun was a .30-06, which I used to shoot my first—and last—deer. I didn’t have the stomach for it. Still, guns have never put me off.

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July 16, 2014January 26, 2018

On Cleveland

I get frustrated when I read about Cleveland. It was my home for six years, three of which I spent living inside the city. It’s not just the jokes about a city that really is on the rise that bug me, though. It’s the way the Clevelanders defend it.

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March 18, 2014January 26, 2018

Could Emmy Be Bigger Than Oscar?

The day after watching 12 Years a Slave win Best Picture at the 86th Academy Awards, I sat down to watch the season finale of True Detective. The show had unfortunately aired against the Oscars, and I made the choice to watch some solid movies be declared “the best” in one category or another. The irony of it all: The real “best” everything was airing on HBO that night.

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January 2, 2014January 26, 2018

Misunderstanding Movies: Anti-Heroes, Gatsbys and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

“Our best movies have always made entertainment out of the anti-heroism of American life; they bring to the surface what, in its newest forms and fashions, is always just below the surface.” – Pauline Kael.

It could be said that the hardest thing about being an artist who creates in a popular form is not the friction between art and commerce. Rather, it’s that once a work is available to the public, the artist loses control over the interpretation. Movies, television shows and music belong to the audience once they become available to it. It’s how a song/album critical of the US’s involvement in Vietnam can become the anthem of a president. And it’s how Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street can be accused of glorifying male bad behavior instead of denouncing it.

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