Tag: Tilda Swinton
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Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die is an unaffectionate homage
I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that Jim Jarmusch would make a zombie movie, since he’s already cycled through idiosyncratic interpretations of westerns (Dead Man), vampires (Only Lovers Left Alive), samurai (Ghost Dog), and thrillers (The Limits of Control). But unlike these, The Dead Don’t Die reads as an unaffectionate (or to coin a word,…
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Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria (2018) has less color than the original, but more of everything else
I appreciate that Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is not attempting to copy Dario Argento’s horror classic, per se, but the association immediately pitches a number of disappointments to get over. First, its avoidance of the original’s vivid, lurid color is so aggressive as to be a punk rock statement. The creative choice sets up a dramatic…
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Brad Pitt Lives Life in Reverse in David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This blogger is slowly cooling on former favorite David Fincher. His underrated first feature Alien3 is highly compromised, but easily the next most thematically interesting entry in the Alien franchise (after, of course, Ridley Scott’s rich original). Se7en is one of the most gut-wrenchingly disturbing movies ever made, notable for having virtually no violence appear…
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The Coen Brothers confound expectations, as usual, with Burn After Reading
Although every Coen Brothers film is unmistakably theirs alone (can the Auteur Theory apply to more than one person at once?), Joel and Ethan have a reputation for rarely making the films audiences want or expect from them at any given time. After Fargo, when everybody wanted another snowy midwestern noir, Joel and Ethan gave…
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Michael Clayton confronts Shiva the God of Death
Michael Clayton is a that rare thing: an intelligent, fictional thriller for grownups. Like any self-respecting Thriller for Grownups, it’s relentlessly grim in tone, the chronology is fractured, and a high level of detail demands your attention. It doesn’t approach impenetrability like Syriana, but it unfortunately doesn’t engage the brain as much as a good…