Having missed the Sundance ’15 debut of Robert Egger‘s The Witch, I didn’t see it until a year later. Boy, was I won over! For me, the film’s critical praise and box-office success ($40 million gross vs. $4 million budget) crystalized my understanding that elevated horror had become a thing — a respectable sub-genre as … Read more
With Robert Eggers‘ The Witch finally opening this coming weekend (2.19), or 13 months after its debut at the 2015 Sundance Film festival, here’s a repost: “This is easily the most unsettling and sophisticated nightmare film since The Babadook. That’s a roundabout way of saying that the dolts who pay to see the usual horror … Read more
I finally saw Robert Eggers‘ The Witch last night, nearly a year after it premiered at Sundance 2015. It’s easily the most unsettling and sophisticated nightmare film since The Babadook. That’s a roundabout way of saying that the dolts who pay to see the usual horror bullshit will probably avoid it to some extent. Insensitive, … Read more
HE to Owen Gleiberman: So much of life and living is propelled by illusion. But for me, Margaret Hamilton’s cackling, green-skinned witch is an absolutely genuine, real-deal figure of campy fun and wicked frolic. Matriarchy schmatriarchy!
How could the celebrated director of Platoon, JFK, Salvador, Born on the 4th of July, Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, Any Given Sunday and W.….how could Oliver Stone drop to his knees in praise of effing Wicked, of all the ‘24 films he could have singled out? Wicked is a fine, well-produced musical but … Read more
Keep your head down, accept the Marvel gay-washing, go along with it. Why fight it?
Yesterday afternoon Jeff and Saha discussed the Barbenheimer Bait & Switch — the two films having been sold as one thing only to reveal their true colors during actual screenings. Hey, maybe it’s me. I mean, maybe I’m a little fucked up or something. But yesterday’s HE comment thread consensus seems to be (a) yes, … Read more
The WordPress feature that counts and posts the number of comments is on the fritz. WordPress always gives you grief of one kind or another. The number of comments always appears on the upper right corner of each post. I’m trying to implement a fix as we speak. Tuesday update, 12:30 pm: Various consultations have … Read more
It was reported yesterday that Felicia Sonmez, the Washington Post staffer whose agitated, sound-the-general-alarm response to Dave Weigel’s retweet of a lame sexist joke led to Weigel ‘s unpaid, month-long suspension, has herself been whacked by management. By all accounts she made her own bed. As Jesus of Nazareth was thought to have once said…
In her Thursday (5.19) testimony in the Depp–Heard defamation lawsuit trial, Ellen Barkin was persuasive in recollections about her “sexual” relationship with Depp (she said she preferred that term to “romantic”), which began sometime in ‘94 and lasted for maybe “five or six months”, give or take. But they had a friendly relationship, both pre- … Read more
For six months Gold Derby’s weather-vane, damp-finger-to-the-wind reactives we’re ALL IN on The Power of the Dog winning the Best Picture Oscar, and then they all flipped around to CODA within the last 72 hours. Friendo: “A good Oscar watcher doesn’t advocate or otherwise try to influence the race. You disagree with that, I realize. … Read more