All posts for the month October, 2021

The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun

Movie review by Greg Carlson First, a note to the naysayers and cynics and grumps and sourpusses and killjoys who would dismiss Wes Anderson as a suffocating ironist infatuated with his dollhouse miniatures and his own cookie cutter formulae recycling the same set of actors within his symmetrically composed frames: GET LOST, GO AWAY, SHOVE […]

Dune

Movie review by Greg Carlson The many media attempts at Frank Herbert’s epic space fantasy “Dune” speak to its lasting appeal and its potent impact. David Lynch’s movie, defended by the filmmaker’s most ardent supporters but excoriated by a larger chorus disappointed in the heavy hand applied by House De Laurentiis, marked the end of […]

Golden Arm

Movie review by Greg Carlson Maureen Bharoocha’s “Golden Arm” applies the irresistible combination of long-haul trucking and competitive arm wrestling in the tradition of Menahem Golan’s 1987 Sylvester Stallone cult nugget “Over the Top.” Close friendship replaces father-son bonding as the emotional heartbeat of the story, and Bharoocha, working from a very funny screenplay by […]

Collecting Movies with Anthony Strand

Interview by Greg Carlson Before she introduced us, mutual friend Morgan Davy told me that Anthony Strand had the uncanny ability to remember the exact running time of every movie he had seen. And he has seen a lot of movies. Strand was born in 1984, under the sign of “Amadeus,” “This Is Spinal Tap,” […]

The Many Saints of Newark

Movie review by Greg Carlson I love “The Sopranos.” I have spent many hours with the show, re-watching favorite episodes, reading popular and academic books and essays deconstructing the series, queuing up clip playlists on YouTube to numb the pain of months in pandemic-imposed isolation. Like many others for whom David Chase’s vivid universe is […]