Hard and Soft: The American

I missed The American when it was in theaters. A shame, because I happened to be working near the Ziegfeld at the time, and I kept meaning to head over there after work – but I also kept hearing about how slow and deliberate and meditative it was, and it seemed fairly certain that I would fall asleep if I went. So I kept waiting for the right moment. And then it was gone. 

"I Can Bring Everyone Back…”: Spielberg's Fantasies of Reversal

So apparently there’s a Spielberg Blogathon going on, starting today. I just found out about it, and wasn’t planning on writing anything, but then it occurred to me to discuss something I’ve always found intriguing about Spielberg’s films. Plus, it gets me to discuss what is one of the guy’s most underrated films, Empire of the Sun. Specifically, this above scene near the end, in which young Jim (young Christian Bale) finally loses it and begins to think that he can bring his dead Japanese kamikaze friend back to life. As he pumps away at the dead boy’s chest, Jim intones, “I can bring everyone back…everyone…”

"Remember, Fabrizio, one can't live without Bertolucci..."

These are interesting times. A fantastic Bernardo Bertolucci retrospective started at MoMA yesterday, and Film Forum  is about to revive The Conformist for a week. So I will hopefully be finding myself in hog-heaven soon, provided I can find some time to actually attend some of these screenings. I'm also hoping to continue writing about some of his films as the retro proceeds. But first, there's some stuff to say.

This is Probably Not the Last Piece I'll Write About 'Inception'

Yes, I need to talk about Inception again. The Blu-Ray/DVD hits shelves this week and I’ve got a piece up at Vulture about some new “revelations” (not really) offered by the film’s home video iteration. And I wrote a lot about it earlier in the summer, when it came out, too. An earlier Vulture piece, "The Hidden Inception Within Inception," in which I offer my take on what might be the real twist at the end of the film, might be one of the most widely read things I’ve ever written. (I also wrote about when to take a bathroom break during the film. Oh, and this piece about how many times each character “dies” in the movie.)

If Mikhail Kalatozov had made 2001: A Space Odyssey...

...then it might have looked a little something like this: