Use the form on the right to contact us.
You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.
123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999
(123) 555-6789
email@address.com
You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.
Link to read me page with more information.
search for me
Filtering by Tag: Adam Driver
Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel, above the fray. (Lionsgate)
Aisha, Glen, Bedatri and I recorded this dissection of Megalopolis a mere 12 hours after the screening ended, which we all acknowledged is not time enough to process an overstuffed epic that Coppola has been working on in some capacity for more than half his life. Fun conversation, though.
Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel in Mr. Coppola’s opus. (Lionsgate)
My Washington City Paper review of Megalopolis, the opus Francis Ford Coppola has been contemplating for more than half his 85-year life, is here. Not the last version of this film we’ll see, I expect.
Two-hander* PCHH episodes are somewhat rare, but I was glad to be able to take part in one with pal Linda Holmes about Michael Mann’s new biopic Ferrari. That it was just the two of us allowed for some discussion of how the movie fits into the 80-year-old auteur’s filmography that we might not have gotten to with a larger panel.
Other critics who on the whole love Mann’s work as much as I do have taken more from this picture than I did. As you’ll hear, I found it to be surprisingly staid and conventional, coming from the guy who’s only other biopic was Ali, 22 years ago, and whose prior feature — almost nine years ago! — was Blackhat, a little-seen thriller that was at least as exciting as it was disjointed. In my City Paper review, I called Ferrari “a sensible sedan of a movie,” which I think fits. Good movie, but I don’t think it’s even as exceptional as Ali, never mind Heat or The Insider or Thief. As always, I’m open to revising my opinion upward upon a second viewing.
*I still don’t get why two-actor plays are called “two-handers” instead of “four-handers.”
Workaholic artist Steven Soderbergh on the set of Logan Lucky. (Bleecker St.)
I dropped by NPR HQ to talk about Steven Soderbergh's return to features, Logan Lucky, with screenwriter and author Danielle Henderson and regular Pop Culture Happy Hour panelists Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon. When we recorded this discussion, I'd taken the opportunity to see the movie a second time after filing my review, and my opinion on it had evolved a little. Anyway, you can find the episode here.
I wish I could put my finger on why it read to me as condescending in a Coenesque way the first time but not the second. I love the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. But the ones Logan Lucky most recalled for me, Raising Arizona and Fargo, are not among my favorites.
Channing Tatum, Riley Keough, and Adam Driver as the luck-starved Logan clan.
Logan Lucky, Steven Soderbergh’s return to features after a four-year “retirement” in prestige TV, is a lot of fun, though I’m not as high on it as some. I have the same reservations about it that I do about the Coen Brothers films it most readily recalls. Anyway, here’s my review.
I was delighted to join Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson — and to share my first Pop Culture Happy Hour panel with the estimable Gene Demby — to process our reactions to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We recorded this episode just a few hours after seeing the movie; the review I wrote to accompany the release of the podcast came from a day or so later. I know my opinion had not entirely settled yet, but we had a fun, lively discussion.
When I sat down to watch the film again two nights later, with Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon seated beside me, he asked if I missed the 20th Century Fox fanfare before the glowing green Lucasfilm logo appeared onscreen. We've spoken before about how that fanfare always gives us a ripple of excitement no matter what we're about to watch, because of the sense-memory of Star Wars. Strangely, I hadn't noticed its absence until Glen pointed it out. (There was a lot of other stuff to notice, c'mon.)
I don't think I mentioned during the toy-talk portion of the podcast that I divested myself of my entire collection of Star Wars figures — in their bust-of-Darth Vader carrying case — at yard sale sometime in the late 1980s for less than $20. My mom, I recall, was not pleased. It's not that she thought I could hold onto them and maybe pay for grad school one day; it's just that I had put my parents through a lot demanding that they track down particular figures for me. (I also demanded a talking toy car from Knight Rider, as you'll hear.) I'm sorry for that, Mom and Dad.
$149.99 at a Bed, Bath, and Beyond near you. (Disney/Lucasfilm)
Stuff I found out for this episode that you won't learn from it: Star Wars action figures each retailed for $1.49 in 1977, $1.99 in 1980, and $2.49 in 1983. There is no small sum of irony in the fact that while many of us, including me, have decried Return of the Jedi as an extended toy ad, it was only the revenue from the sales of Star Wars toys that kept that film's precursor, consensus favorite The Empire Strikes Back, afloat during its troubled production. (Chris Taylor covers all this in his fine book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe.)
Finally, I was happy to be able to pimp my tenth Christmas mixtape, which is posted for your hall-decking streaming pleasure right here.
