‘Before Midnight’: A Very Long Conversation Has Its Moments
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Richard Linklater made his name in 1991 with Slacker, a low-key, discursive ramble through Austin that introduced a new generation and spontaneous form of filmmaking that concealed surprising intelligence and artfulness beneath its laid-back style. Linklater has gone on to pursue a wonderfully eclectic career, hopping from sci-fi animation ( Waking Life ) to family-friendly comedies ( School of Rock …
Saturday, June 15, 2013
A colleague of mine made the astute observation that superhero blockbusters have something in common with medieval religious art. Both rely on rigidly fixed iconographies drawn from a narrow range of canonical subject matter. The individual creator may vary the style, but the terms of the representation are governed by a larger divine or quasi-divine cosmic order: hence the endless variations on the …
Friday, June 14, 2013
Seventy-five years after he sprang from the imaginations of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman is making another visit to movie screens, in Man of Steel, with Henry Cavill playing the superhero. Coupled with the anniversary of the character’s first comic-book appearance in 1938, the movie at once aims to generate new interest …