Poetry 85

I thought the deal was, remakes are as hysterical as nostalgia feels. But this one’s even more somber and reserved—no easy feat—than its original. One took the emblem of Macchio quivering in that crane stance too literally—I signed up for karate class instead of readying this bullied soul for one last point. To think he […]

The 88-year-old monkey man splatters clorox, straight from the bottle, over sidewalk weeds outside. Quote, “I’m crazy. I’m really crazy.” Heigl plays a recently-dumped internet-security software developer swept off her feet in Nice by boyishly buff Kelso, a CIA assassin whose violent side translates, in their courtship, into suavity and the spontaneity she lacks. He […]

Maybe the best drug moment is: you took something stronger than you’d meant to, but now it’s done—smoked, sniffed, swallowed—and you understand you’re bound to see it through. Though you could argue the high point is always the wrestling, wrecked. Or, what about a New York dawn you watch resolve through a hotel window, like […]

The soul of montage: a Great Dane’s face on the screen, a familiar human voice emitting from the surround speakers, and all at once the sequence of unshakable conclusions: thought—interiority—self. The only CGI that matters is the animation of what might easily already be filmed from nature. Only then does it recapitulate the disappointment one […]