review Page 882 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Why Your Team Sucks 2013: Jacksonville Jaguars
Some people are fans of the Jacksonville Jaguars. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Jacksonville Jaguars. This 2013 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group....
The Art of Storytelling: Joyce Carol Oates
From Open Culture, here's The Writing Life of Joyce Carol Oates:...
A Champ Looks At A Champ
From Leonard Gardner's 1971 New York Times review of the Jose Torres book, Sting Like a Bee: The Muhammad Ali Story:...
Undead And Uptight: <em>World War Z</em>, Reviewed.
1. At this point, the zombie movie has gone through just about every permutation possible, from its low-budget schlock horror roots all the way into the world of comedy, faux-documentary, Western, even romance. The one thing we haven't seen yet from the zombie genre, at least until the release of W...
It's A Turd! It's Plain! <em>Man Of Steel</em>, Reviewed.
1. On the surface, it seems obvious why you'd attempt to reboot the Superman franchise using the Christopher Nolan-Batman model. Nolan's Dark Knight films are terrific, brooding and powerful, and, oh by the way, they grossed a combined $2.5 billion worldwide. But their trying to make a tortured-supe...
What Happened To The Jokes? <em>The Hangover, Part III,</em> Reviewed.
1. The Hangover, Part III is better than Part II, but not by much, and really only because it didn't just recycle, almost beat for beat, the plot of the first film. The plot it lands on this time isn't much better, though, and all told, it doesn't have much more energy than that film did. The two se...
<em>Before Midnight</em> Is Darker Than You Want It To Be
Did you want to learn that Jesse and Celine, the couple we fell in love with as they fell in love with each other in the Richard Linklater films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, have become cantankerous, unhappy middle-aged jerks? That their love has curdled into passive-aggressive routine and bare...
The Summer Game
Nice piece by Adam Sobsey over at the Paris Review on what promises to be a great documentary: Bull City Summer....
Connnnnnnn! <em>Star Trek Into Darkness</em>, Reviewed.
1. I've never gotten the sense that J.J. Abrams really cares all that much about the Star Trek franchise. Abrams has said that he was far more into Star Wars—as any reasonable person would be—and that his first, well-received Star Trek was more about rebooting a franchise than any particular passion...
Let it Bleed
Head on over to the Columbia Journalism Review for this appreciation of Red Smith by his son, Terence Smith:...
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into The Crap. <em>The Great Gatsby</em>, Reviewed.
1. I'm confused at to what Baz Luhrmann, the crazy over-the-top director of Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, would possibly want with The Great Gatsby. Well, I see why he might like it as a theoretical challenge: What ambitious filmmaker (and Luhrmann is nothing if not ambitious) wouldn't want to tr...
<em>Iron Man 3</em>, Reviewed.
1. Other than that terrible Todd Phillips-Zach Galifianakis comedy Due Date, Robert Downey Jr. hasn't played a character other than Tony Stark or Sherlock Holmes in four years. Of all the actors who could have ended up settling into tentpole action star roles? Downey? I caught Robert Altman's Short...
Michael Bay's Ode To Meatheads: <em>Pain & Gain</em>, Reviewed.
There are many movies that could have been made from the raw materials of Pain & Gain, which is based on a series of outrageous Miami New Times articles about three dimwit Florida bodybuilders who in 1994 kidnapped a rich local businessman and stripped him of all his assets. Some filmmakers, for exa...
If Only History Went Down This Smoothly. <i>42</i>, Reviewed.
People go to inspirational sports movies not in spite of their predictability but because of it. Other than romantic comedies, there's no other genre so dependent on the fact that you know exactly how they're going to play out. It doesn't help that they're usually based on true stories. These movies...
Benlands. Terrence Malick's <em>To The Wonder</em>, With A Silent Affleck, Reviewed.
1. You can make all the jokes you want about Terrence Malick's movies, particularly these last two later-era ones, whose interest in normal movie things like "plots" and "stories" and "coherent narratives" is minimal at best, but they knock my socks off. I know that both The Tree of Life and now To ...
For The Next Remake, Just Add More Blood: <i>Evil Dead</i>, Reviewed.
1. A good rule of thumb: If you are holding a book in your hands and you notice that someone has gone to the trouble of shutting that book with barbed wire, do not attempt to open this book. If you do open this book, then do not read from it–particularly when previous patrons of the Satan Public Lib...
I Have No Idea What This <i>Upstream Color</i> Movie Is About, But It Is Awesome
To make a list of things I do not understand about Shane Carruth's Upstream Color would be to simply list everything that happens in the movie. But lemme try out some questions on you anyway: Who is the man who kidnaps a woman and drugs her by feeding her a worm? And why does that worm cause her to ...
Why Your Children's Television Program Sucks: <i>Dora The Explorer</i>
A look at the awful children’s programming you’re forced to endure before you can finally kick the kids out of the TV room to watch sports for eight hours. Illustration by Jim Cooke....
Danny Boyle Mesmerizes Himself. <em>Trance</em>, Reviewed.
For director Danny Boyle, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. With each genre of movie he makes, you get the sense that he wants to be sure it's the most demonstrative of its kind ever. Trainspotting was the druggiest movie ever. 28 Days Later was the zombie-iest movie ever. Slumdog Millionaire...