The New Girlfriend Written & Directed by François Ozon France, 2014 The latest from prolific French auteur François Ozon opens on a somber note as Claire (Anaïs Demoustier) recounts her lifelong friendship with the deceased Laura (Isild Le Besco), whose untimely death has left her grieving husband David (Romain Duris) alone with their infant daughter. …
It isn’t always easy for a film critic to admit he’s wrong or say he’s sorry. Our job is to defend our statements, even if it comes to revising them later. It’s even harder for a modern film critic, today’s most dwindling yet thriving non-occupation, to leave a lasting influence on popular culture, the web …
Crave Directed by Charles de Lauzirika Written by Charles de Lauzirika and Robert Lawton USA, 2012 Although this review is going to be about Charles de Lauzirika’s Crave, it seems appropriate to talk about it in relation to Taxi Driver, because despite its best efforts to differentiate itself, Crave just can’t seem to emerge from …
On January 25, 2007, Onion A.V. Club critic Nathan Rabin inadvertently added a phrase to the movie lexicon. One that would eventually get it’s own Wikipedia page and it’s own NPR story. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. In his review of Elizabethtown, Rabin said the following of Kirstin Dunst’s character: “Dunst embodies a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (see Natalie Portman in Garden State for another prime example). The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is an all-or-nothing-proposition. Audiences either want to marry her instantly (despite The Manic Pixie Dream Girl being, you know, a fictional character) or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family.”