Hollywood in the 1950s was a mosaic of studios, each with its own stable of stars that churned out movies with machine-like efficiency. Written and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Hail, Caesar!, an exuberant satire of that cinematic era, has installed an unlikely human hub at the center of it all. Eddie Mannix […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Spectre’ (2015)
Like a sturdy shoe stomping cockroaches, James Bond, as British Agent 007, exists to exterminate cartoonish villains whose goal is to appropriate global power. Directed by Sam Mendes, Spectre, the latest offering in the franchise, gives us more of the same derring do, at a critical moment involving national security. The “007” program is likely […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ (2014)
In The Grand Budapest Hotel, the movie’s titular edifice is seen perched atop an Alps-like mountain looking like a birthday cake smothered in icing you can almost taste. It’s an old-world, pretty-in-pink picture, and the movie’s writer and director Wes Anderson wants to regress us back to that more civilized time whose days are, unfortunately, […]