German filmmaker Hermann Vaske spent 30 years working on various projects, but always returned to the fundamental question asked in the title of this documentary. As he meets one celebrity after the other while traveling all over Europe and the U.S., these undeniably creative people are sometimes startled to be asked that question and try … Continue reading Why Are We Creative: The Centipede’s Dilemma
YOU WON’T KNOW THE FACTS UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THE FICTION. A few weeks before this year’s Cannes festival, where one of the most talked-about events will be Quentin Tarantino’s return with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I took the chance to revisit the film that really made his career. In 2019, there’s only one … Continue reading Pulp Fiction: Great Vengeance and Furious Anger
In the clip above, director John Singleton talks about the process he went through writing the movie that launched his career, Boyz N the Hood (1991). He followed the old rule “write what you know” and grounded the film in South Los Angeles, the place where he grew up. Boyz N the Hood earned Singleton an Oscar nomination … Continue reading John Singleton, 1968–2019
AVENGE THE FALLEN. Five years after the events of Infinity War, the remaining Avengers realize that there can be a way of traveling back in time to stop Thanos (Josh Brolin). The fourth Avengers film is a glorious, three-hour end in 3D to what we’ve seen ever since Iron Man (2008), cleverly and nostalgically connecting … Continue reading Avengers: Endgame
STILL THE MAN, ANY QUESTIONS? The son (Christian Bale) of a wealthy real estate tycoon kills a black man, is released on bail and leaves the country; when he returns a few years later, New York cop John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) is determined to see him punished. When this blaxploitation hero was revived a … Continue reading Shaft
EVERYTHING BEGINS WITH A (HER)O. In 1995, Vers (Brie Larson) returns to Earth, a member of an elite alien force… but also with vague memories of life as a U.S. Air Force pilot. Virtually serving as a parenthesis between two Avengers movies, Infinity War and Endgame, this film introduces another Marvel hero while also taking … Continue reading Captain Marvel
Ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe started dominating the global box office, superheroes have become a safe bet. You may say you’ve grown tired of the genre, but it’s made important cultural advances over the years. They have become more inclusive when it comes to women and minorities, even if the safe basic formulas really … Continue reading My 12 Favorite Superhero Movies
BACK TO WORK. At a time when the public has no trust in superheroes anymore, a billionaire contacts the Parrs and offers them a way to relaunch their careers. It took Pixar and Brad Bird 14 years to produce a sequel, but it was worth the wait. Firmly grounded in the original’s visual look, but … Continue reading Incredibles 2
GUNS, GIRLS, GLOBAL DOMINATION. After a satellite is deliberately made to crash in Brazil, the CIA tracks down Xander Cage (Vin Diesel), who’s faked his death; he and his team must now find a lost device that controls satellites. This second sequel to xXx (2002) came 12 years after the last one and brings Diesel … Continue reading xXx: Return of Xander Cage
WHERE WILL YOU BE, WHEN IT ALL ENDS? Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) crash-lands on Earth in time to let the other Avengers know that he and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) have just faced the formidable villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) and that he’s coming to find the rest of the all-powerful Infinity Stones. The third movie in the … Continue reading Avengers: Infinity War
In the 1970s, the American writer James Baldwin gathered notes and letters for a manuscript called ”Remember This House”, but it was never finished. This documentary was based on it, with Samuel L. Jackson reading the notes as the voice of Baldwin. He’s a hypnotic presence throughout. If you’re not familiar with Baldwin this is … Continue reading I Am Not Your Negro
THE PRESIDENT HAS ONE SMALL CHANCE OF SURVIVAL. When Air Force One is shot down by terrorists in the Finnish wilderness, President William Alan Moore (Samuel L. Jackson) has to rely on the experience of a local, 13-year-old boy (Onni Tommila) who’s armed with a bow and arrows… You don’t often get to see a … Continue reading Big Game
STAY PECULIAR. 16-year-old Jake Portman (Asa Butterfield) goes to Wales together with his father to look for a mysterious orphanage that his granddad (Terence Stamp) told fanciful stories about from World War II… Tim Burton is the right person to make a movie out of Ransom Riggs’s imaginative novel, a fairy tale about a place … Continue reading Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
