Let’s clear the air about Taylor Swift and who she is, what she is and her legitimacy as a pop music force. First off, the young singer (now 20, soon to be 21 in December) hit the scene as a country music artist whose popularity grew in a grass roots sort of way. She was the anti-Britney Spears – someone vulnerable, sincere and innocent even if her lyrics proved to be biting and bitter at times.
Dancing can be dangerous, and not just physically. The canon of ballet narratives is full of tales of people (mostly women) who dance themselves to death. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s seminal 1948 THE RED SHOES famously turned a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale into a fable set in the world of ballet. Now director Darren Aronofsky uses the classic SWAN LAKE as the backdrop and catalyst for the potential implosion of his heroine.
If THE X-FILES had decided to do a Christmas episode for the R.L. Stine set, it might have been something like RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE. Made and set in Finland, general vicinity where the mythical Santa supposedly dwells, RARE is a horror movie pitched at kids, with bits of gore (dead animals, a bitten ear) but mostly a sense of menace and black comedy.
To clear up one possible area of confusion at the outset, I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS is not about someone who has fallen for the tobacco company of that name. Instead, it is the fact-based story of Steven Russell, a con artist who managed to non-violently escape from jail on four different occasions and for awhile pulled off a number of astonishing cons, many of them to assist the love of his life, Phillip Morris.
It’s ironic that two of the coolest wild west scores to arrive in years both hail from Down Under, as Dmitri Golovko’s RED HILL joins Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ THE PROPOSITION as prime examples of how to give an old musical warhorse a shot of ferocious outlaw energy. But where PROPOSITION’s nerve-jangling percussion brought modern experimentalism to a blood-soaked period piece, RED HILL shoots its raw, old-school acoustic sound into a contemporary western- in this case playing the last stand outback sheriff standing against a recently released villain out for some biblical payback. There’s very little that’s Aussie here […]Read On »
It’s finally time to snatch a pebble out of Film Score Monthly’s hand with this soundtrack two-fer, which combines music from two poetically different scores for men seeking their way in the American outback. The first traveler just happens to be everyone’s favorite Shaolin fugitive monk Cain, whose mystical tête-à-têtes with his teachers are front and center through much of KUNG FU. Though designed as a concept album in 1973 by composer Jim Helms, some score purists might take umbrage to so much dialogue on an FSM release. Yet it’s almost hard to imagine Helms’ harmonies without the Confucianisms, the […]Read On »
I’ve been getting on a 1980s movie kick as of late, not doubt aided by the constant influx of DVD and Blu-ray releases of classic (and no so classic) films from that era. The Blu-ray of William Lustig’s 1983 revenge fantasy flick VIGILANTE finally hits Blu-ray and it’s another forgotten cult classic. Starring Robert Forster and badass Fred Williamson, this is surprisingly one of those films I missed over the years (don’t remember it from cable, nor video stores).
Your time is short. We know this. So in order to expedite your buying and Netflix decision making, we provide you with a list of the cool and not-so-cool titles coming out for movies, television and everything in-between. So put your feet up, grab some popcorn and check out this week’s selections. Movies THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE – Obviously, this is the biggest title of the week. Regardless of what anyone thinks of the film itself or its legacy among vampire lore, the ravenous tweens and soccer moms are going to rush out and buy it or have you buy […]Read On »
There’s a part of me that would really like to see GLEE do more episodes like “Special Education” and “Never Been Kissed” – ones that actually feel well constructed and tell multiple stories that actually tie together properly. It’s also refreshing, in the case of “Special Education” that Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) isn’t shoved down our throats just to have her there for some unneeded conflict. I love the character, but Sue always works in moderation. In the case, she’s totally M.I.A. and the show, weirdly, is the better for it. No guest stars either. No gimmicks. Just the main cast, who are allowed to thankfully shine.
While many of the characters of GLEE get to wear their emotions on their sleeve, jock and show choir member Finn has proven to be the most introspective. As played by Cory Monteith, Finn internalizes so much, it’s hard to really pinpoint where he’s coming from at times. Yet, for all his internal strife, he’s also the one character who has grown leaps and bounds with last week’s episode finally having embraced Kurt (Chris Colfer) as his step-brother with open arms. ASSIGNMENT X caught up with Monteith to talk about Season Two, exploring his voice and covering Queen as […]Read On »
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