Tropic Thunder
2008. 107 minutes. Rated R. Kirk Lazarus: “I know who I am! I’m a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude!” It doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test. There are gratuitous explosions. It toes the line with stereotypes. But Tropic Thunder was one of my favorite movies of 2008. It’s a movie about making a movie, which is a fantastic frame; unbeknownst to the actors who have been dropped on location in Vietnam for...
Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns
1994/2010. 1,140 minutes. Rated TV PG. Baseball matters, despite what its detractors might think. Like jazz, it really is one of the best things to come out of America. This is in contrast, arguably with football, which George Will, political columnist and baseball writer claims combines the two worst elements of American life: committee meetings and violence. There’s a justice to the game. If you’re in the lineup, you will have a...
Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert
2018. 100 minutes. unrated. available on Hulu . “The end…/Is just a little harder when brought about by friends.” Remember when movies used to air on television just once a year and it was a super special event? The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, the Ten Commandments (which aired annually at Easter, if I recall). This practice has fallen by the wayside (no thanks to cable and the Internet). This year, NBC aired a...
Joueuse (Queen to Play)
2009. 101 minutes. Unrated. I can’t play chess in my head. I’m a poor strategist. I didn’t even discover castling until college. But I know the basic moves of chess, and I love the IDEA of chess as foreplay, and it works pretty well in this French romantic comedy, even if the endgame is (satisfyingly!) predictable. This is the second French romantic comedy I’ve seen, and something about them leaves me a little cold. Are French women...
Dear Basketball
2017. 5 minutes. Unrated. “Bryant for the win!” Dear Basketball is Kobe Bryant’s end of career love letter to the sport that changed his life. Executed in graphite, Bryant reminisces about being a six-year old boy, rolling up his father’s tube socks and making free throws into his trash can (depicted as a basketball hoop mounted on his bedroom door. Moments from his career are rendered into animated moments....
