movie reviews

Keanu Reeves and Martin Scorsese in 'Side by Side'

Chris and Keanu’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure: Side by Side Zooms in on Role of Digital Techonolgy in Film

Have you ever wondered what your favorite director thought about shooting on digital film? How about actress Greta Gerwig? Have you even considered what the indie actress thought the first time she heard the whirring sound of an actual celluloid camera? What of cinematographers and colorists—how interested are you in exploring their relationships? (Are they adversaries? Do they work as a team? Did they start out adversaries, but thanks to advances in technology, now work as a team?) Have you ever wondered how Keanu Reeves would sound saying such profound phrases as “film has helped us share our experiences and dreams,” or “by the 1980s, Avid had developed digital editing into a cost-effective, computer-based system”?

If the answer to any of the above is “yes—but only if fed to me through a 90-minute documentary”—then you are exactly the niche audience longtime production manager and part-time documentarian Chris Kenneally had in mind for his second feature-length film, Side by Side. Read More

Olympics 2012

Olympic flame (screengrab)

NBC’s Broadcast of The Olympics Opening Ceremony Was The Worst [Video]

Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle crafted an epic opening ceremony for the 2012 Summer Olympics. It was filled with uniquely British pageantry, drama, great music and classically quirky humor. At least American audiences afflicted with NBC’s tape-delayed coverage of the Friday night spectacular think Mr. Boyle accomplished this. We can’t be sure, because the consensus online seems to be that NBC’s tape-delayed coverage of the Opening Ceremony was terrible. Screen Rant was pointed: Read More

He’s on Boyle, Baby!

“Bloody hell, that was a good decision. Damn!” English director Danny Boyle was boasting about casting the magnetic Irishman Cillian Murphy as his leading man. “In between the first film I did with him [28 Days Later] and this one [sci-fi suspense thriller Sunshine, which opens on Friday], I’ve seen some of the things he’s Read More

Another Dreary Apocalyptic Virus

Wafting in a stupor between Hulk s and Matrix es and Terminator 3 ‘s, movie critics in the summer of 2003 are living in a state of suspended animation. Searching each week for new ways to make the trash I’m sitting through sound bearable, endurable or even humorously disposable is a pretend game of debilitating Read More