Welp, that was weird and frustrating and a little disappointing. It was great to see Kevin Smith fully commit to the bit, but it was hard to find much to love in the film. Long's performance is on point, Michael Parks is always fantastic (especially under Smith's direction, lately), but it does little for me as a whole.
It is interesting to think of this as a new period in Kevin Smith's career. I mean, look for a second at…
Top Five is a thick film, richly textured, straddling multiple conflicting words like a colossus. It tells a story of success and of failure, of the mixture of those two. It frustrates a sense of the opacity/transparency of people. It is funny, but doesn't make you laugh. Well, that's a lie, its hilarious, and I laughed from the belly an awful lot. But it also had me in a reflective mode, laughing at the reality of things, not their fictions.…
It is hard to find a place to begin when attempting to describe Paul Thomas Anderson's newest film. I have been a fan of his work for a while, and while Magnolia remains my favorite, it is hard to deny that he is making better and better films as he ages. There Will Be Blood, his dusty, oil epic, was widely hailed, and universally praised. The Master was a bit more divisive, with its strangely ferocious and yet restrained look…
