Dir. Warren Beatty. Starring Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson When I first started this blog, one of the categories I knew I wanted to include was “Losing Steam,” for movies that began with a rush, reach a fabulous climax, and then peter out for one reason or another. Two movies immediately came to mind… Read More Reds (1981)
Dir. Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson. Starring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz Shrek, when it came out, was an enormous breath of fresh air. Like dawn going down to day, the Disney Renaissance had ended two years before with Tarzan, in my mind one of the more uneven features of that group. Dinosaur and… Read More Shrek (2001)
Dir. Damien Chazelle. Starring Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser People listen to music for repetition, predictability. This is why a three minute ditty on the radio can repeat its chorus three times and no one is bothered, and this is why people in pressed shirts go crazy for Ravel’s Bolero. Even music like Schoenberg’s… Read More Whiplash (2014)
Dir. Dan Scanlon. Starring Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Helen Mirren The girls are at summer camp. They report something strange is in their cabin. None of them are frightened – in fact, some even seem a little giddy. Regardless, forest rangers and other law enforcement quickly evacuate the girls before heading in. Slowly, quietly, cautiously,… Read More Monsters University (2013)
Back to the Disney Renaissance, and for an accidentally long podcast. We talk about how Josh is this close to being Lord Greystoke, Tim’s need to make everything he loves relate to Absalom, Absalom!, and most importantly, we join the rest of the Internet in asking if a hot dog is a sandwich. Come on… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 6: Autopsy-Turvy (Disney Renaissance, Part 2)
We kept the last one to an hour. This one, not so much. We had many things to say about The Incredibles – Helen Parr, the best Pixar character and Syndrome, faceless victim to Bob Parr’s Howard Roark – and not so many things to say, comparatively speaking, about Finding Nemo. Listen to find out… Read More Baumann and Burch Podcast #4 – Feminist Icon Helen Parr (Pixar, Part 2)
We meant to make a single podcast about Pixar. We made two instead. This first half (which is less than an hour! Woo!) talks about our bottom five Pixar movies, as well as Tim’s scorching take on Toy Story 3 and Matt’s belief that all of these movies contain a secret message about a workers’… Read More Baumann and Burch Podcast #3 – Immigrant Pillbugs (Pixar, Part 1)
There are some books that I read over and over again. From the time I was in sixth grade up into my last year of college, I read To Kill a Mockingbird at least twice a year. (I’ll be citing the edition that is yellow and a little torn beyond its years: it’s the first… Read More Villainous Age in Harper Lee’s “Oeuvre”
Dir. John Ford. Starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Henry Brandon The diagetic portions of this movie begin with a surprisingly striking image: a woman stands in a doorway, black in the way Pierre-Auguste Renoir said a painting should never use black, her silhouette blocking the majestic view of the ostensibly Texan skyline. (It’s Monument Valley,… Read More The Searchers (1956)
Dir. Pete Docter. Starring Amy Poehler, Kaitlyn Dias, Phyllis Smith That’s my Middle West – not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns but the thrilling, returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows… Read More Inside Out (2015)
Seeing Things Secondhand 