Last week, I took time to praise 1989’s apocalyptic thriller Miracle Mile. So dark, so edgy, so depressing, why not find something lighter in the realm of “End of the World Cinema?” Yes, it does exist in the form of 2012’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. From writer-director Lorene Scafaria comes this heartfelt view of the “end of days” that is equal parts whimsy, terror, curiosity, humanity, with outrageous laughs and well-earned tears. The film stars Steve Carrell and Keira Knightley in a pair of winning performances. As the film starts, we learn that an asteroid is heading towards Earth (without Bruce Willis to stop it this time) and the planet will be decimated in a matter of

Growing up in the tail end of the Cold War may seem insignificant now, but at the time the future didn’t always seem guaranteed to me. Despite a lack of social media and 24-hour news coverage, there was still more than enough hysteria and fear-mongering to make any logical person foresee an impending apocalypse. TV and film also contributed their fair share of frightening tales from the groundbreaking miniseries The Day After to Lynne Littman’s striking feature film Testament (featuring a heart-breaking performance by Jane Alexander) to John Badham’s ultimate nuclear near nightmare WarGames. To this day, I am sure that we all have our own scenario of what would happen and how we would we rea

Note: This article is adapted from a presentation I gave at the Literature/Film Association Annual Conference in New Orleans on December 1, 2018. Sorry to Bother You, from first-time director Boots Riley, was released to critical acclaim in January 2018. The film follows the story of Cassius Green (a play on words – "cash is green"), played by Lakeith Stanfield, also known for his roles as Darius in the FX series Atlanta, Andre Hayworth in Get Out, and Snoop Dogg in Straight Outta Compton. The film opens in an alternate present-day version of Oakland with Cassius (who goes by Cash) desperately attempting to land a job at a telemarketing firm, where he is hired despite being caught blatantly

Sorry to Bother You, the 2018 film from director Boots Riley is a biting satire that literalizes the conditions commonly associated with late-stage capitalism – an era of transnational flows of capital, increased labor demands, and corporate domination. In the film this is embodied in the form of Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), the founder of WorryFree, a company that provides the equivalent of slave labor. This labor is presented, by Lift, as voluntary – an opportunity for those in need to live a “WorryFree life” in exchange for food and shelter. Lift is also the owner of RegalView, a telemarketing firm in which entry-level employees cold call presumably middle-class individuals in an attempt to

I did, in fact work at the call center. It was only for about two days, and if I recall correctly the pay was nine dollars an hour plus bonuses. We were soliciting donations for public television in Buffalo, from the hours of 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon. A curious reader might ask why it makes sense to solicit donations during business hours, to which I would simply reply that we were essentially targeting the elderly. Targeting? Well, that part was a bit sinister. Part of my training, which included a manager playing an employee’s recorded call for us and exclaiming that he was going to choke him out later that day for doing it wrong, involved a series of psychological manipul

Sometimes a film stays with you a few days and lingers. Perhaps you have been a witness to cinematic brilliance like Moonlight or BlackKklansman. Perhaps your sides are still hurting with laughter after seeing Young Frankenstein or Airplane. Perhaps it’s a horror film that has unnerved you like The Descent or The Babadook. Or perhaps a film has many levels to unravel like Memento or Matchstick Men. It’s completely subjective and we all have our own respective tastes but sometimes a movie just gets to you and stays for a while. 2007’s Timecrimes is an eerie time travel thriller that takes the concept of paradoxes and turns them on their head…..then it tosses them into a centrifuge. Here is a

Title: Shazam! Genre: Action/Superhero/Fantasy Stars: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou, Faithe Herman, Grace Fulton, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand Director: David F. Sandberg Bias: I am waaay out of the loop when it comes to the DCEU films. The last one I saw was Wonder Woman, and I haven't bothered tracking down Batman Vs. Superman, Justice League, or Aquaman. At best I find the post-Christopher Nolan DC films enjoyable if not world-shattering (Man of Steel, Wonder Woman) and at worst I find them virtually unwatchable (Suicide Squad). Grade: A- In A Nutshell: Precocious orphan and chronic runaway Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is 'chosen' by a mysterious wizard

Last week I took time to fawn over the talent and beauty of Madeleine Stowe. This week I would like to highlight another actress whose immense talent may only be outshined by her timeless beauty: Diane Lane. Hard to believe, but Ms. Lane has been honing her craft on-screen for forty years. She got her start alongside Sir Laurence Olivier in George Roy Hill’s A Little Romance. She was a part of the “teen scene” in classics like The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, grew up before our eyes in The Big Town and Vital Signs and blossomed into a fully-formed adult performer in A Walk on the Moon and her Oscar-nominated turn in Unfaithful. More recently she joined the new DC film universe as Superman’s hu

Title: Sekiro By: FromSoftware, Activision Genre: Action-Adventure Key Creators: Hidetaka Miyazaki (Director), Yuzo Kojima (Producer) Grade: A In a Nutshell: You are a shinobi named Wolf, and with your trusty sword and swiss-army-prosthetic-arm, you seek revenge on the samurai who has kidnapped your lord. The Critique: In one or two sentences: Sekiro lives up to the hype. It is a very good game. As much as this conversation annoys me at this point, it’s important to say something about this game in relation to that game that is so constantly mentioned in reviews: Dark Souls. While it does bare a fair amount of family resemblance to every other member of the soulsborne family (bonfire checkpo

Every winter, the Detroit Film Theater plays the Oscar-nominated shorts in its beautiful, historic theater. It’s become a tradition for me to go with a few friends and discuss our favorites as they roll (quietly and subtly, of course). For me, it’s all about the animated shorts. I love illustration and the way animation plays with sound and color to tell a story. But, I have to say, for as much as I look forward to the shorts, I ultimately find them disappointing. Year after year, the same types of stories seem to be selected. Often, they’re steeped in sentimentality and tend to focus on the intimate struggles of family discord. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for stuff like this. And

Madeleine Stowe is drop dead gorgeous. There, I said it. But in addition to her timeless beauty, what makes her a truly captivating screen presence is the way that she radiates intelligence with a non-stop BS detector. From Stakeout to Short Cuts to 12 Monkeys to The General’s Daughter, Stowe is always a commanding performer and rarely plays anything resembling a damsel in distress. 1994’s Blink finds Stowe in one of her best roles, as a previously blind violinist who gains her sight back via corneal transplant. Her re-adjustment period includes “retroactive hallucination” whereby she cannot recognize new sights until a day later. And to make matters even more challenging she becomes the tar