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Hammer and Thump
Posts by Locke Peterseim
It took until mid-June, but this movie season finally has what every summer needs. After a May filled with decent-but-uninspiring fare like Iron Man and Star Trek, dumb-fun stuff like Fast and Furious 6, and universally-agreed-upon whipping boy After Earth, in Man of Steel we finally have a blockbuster everyone—fans, critics, geeks, and mainstream popcorn [...]
Read More* Your results may vary. I admit I was getting nervous. More and more often in recent years, I’ve gone to see big-name “comedies” that everyone else thought were “heeee-larious,” but I found at best amusing, at worst, hateful and horrifically unfunny. We all know humor is a personal, subjective thing, and that it thrives [...]
Read MoreTwo summers ago I was knocked out by the DIY micro-budget science-fiction film Another Earth and the thoughtful, creative integrity and energy of its makers, writer-director Mike Cahill and writer-star Brit Marling. When I interviewed the two back in 2011, I was further impressed and inspired by their story: Marling, an economics major, had met [...]
Read MoreLast year, while watching 21 Jump Street, I was impressed by the handsome, charismatic young actor playing the eco-minded high-school drug dealer, and scribbled in my notes, “It looks like this kid stole James Franco’s DNA.” Of course, by the end of the movie, I’d realized how true that was: The actor was in fact [...]
Read More“… So shut it, hatas.” – Signed, the Pinkett-Smith Family, M. Night Shyamalan, and Justin Bieber There are films that fail because of shoddy production, lazy film making, and a general pandering lack of cohesive creative vision. Films that don’t try, that don’t care, that have nothing but obvious, greedy contempt for their audiences. And [...]
Read MoreWhat Maisie Knew updates to present day Henry James’ 1897 novel about a young girl used as an emotional pawn between her divorced parents. As directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel (co-directors of The Deep End, Bee Season) from a screenplay by Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright, the new film navigates with rich emotional [...]
Read MoreThe other day, after surviving a screening of Hangover III and faced with writing about a “comedy” so completely humorless that its relentless ineptitude felt like it had to be intentional, I had a moment of clarity about the film, the franchise, and its smug, hack auteur Todd Phillips (Old School, Hangover I and II, [...]
Read More(Seriously – this is a really long, rambling, geek-wonky piece about why I’m disappointed in Star Trek Into Darkness. It’s really probably only of intersted to hard-core Trek fans who’ve seen Into Darkness and are thus spoiler-proof. And even they might get bored with it all.) In my previous piece about why I felt a [...]
Read More“What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around?… Nobody is going to be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail! What’s he gonna sound like?… “He will just bit by little bit lower our standards where they are important. Just a tiny little bit. Just [...]
Read MoreIt’s possible to both love the giddy, flamboyant excesses and musical abandon of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 fever-dream Moulin Rouge and appreciate the rich prose and all-American soul-searching of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby and still come away from Luhrmann’s new film version of the literary classic feeling that just because someone can do [...]
Read MoreI’d guess most everyone who helped give Iron Man Three the number two box-office opening of all time (after its stable mate The Avengers last year) came away from it feeling suitably entertained by the First Summer Film of the Year. But so much of that feeling, including the public’s attendance and “A” CinemaScore, can’t help [...]
Read MoreAfter three (going on four) Transformers movies for “kids,” we’re back to being buffeted and beaten down by director Michael Bay’s R-rated adolescent id (last seen popping up its leering, lurid, head in 2003’s repugnant Bad Boys II). Bay’s Pain & Gain tells (as we’re repeatedly reminded by “ironic” title cards) the true story of [...]
Read MoreAh, the tyranny of “cool ideas.” Any young, imaginative genre fan (be it of sci-fi, Westerns, crime, or romance) no doubt had school notebooks festooned with doodles and descriptions of ideas birthed along the lines of, “Wouldn’t it be really, wicked-awesome, cool, gnarly if…,” followed by descriptions and drawings of Ligers and their ilk. Written [...]
Read MoreLike many, at first I dismissed Harmony Korine’s 1995 screenplay for Larry Clark’s Kids and his 1997 directorial debut Gummo (as well as the follow ups Julian Donkey Boy and Trash Humpers) as sordid shock mongering; his fascination with the degenerate behavior of the bungled and the botched coming off as risible hipster sneering. But as [...]
Read MoreIn 2011, writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s feature film debut Blue Valentine, about a marriage in collapse, grabbed the attention of film lovers who appreciate powerful, perhaps even brutal emotional honesty. For his follow up, Cianfrance has reteamed with his Valentine star Ryan Gosling, plus Bradley Cooper, Ray Liotta, Eva Mendes, and go-to character actor Ben Mendelsohn, [...]
Read MoreIn 2011, writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s feature-film debut Blue Valentine, about a marriage in collapse, grabbed the attention of film lovers who appreciate powerful, perhaps even brutal emotional honesty. For his follow up, Cianfrance has reteamed with his Valentine star Ryan Gosling, plus Bradley Cooper, Ray Liotta, Eva Mendes, and go-to character actor Ben Mendelsohn, to [...]
Read MoreDespite a title cribbed from Notorious B.I.G., writer-director Adam Leon’s first feature, Gimme the Loot, isn’t some dark, violent dive into the criminal underworld. Instead, the sure-footed film is a much lighter, but still honest urban adventure that follows two New York City graffiti artists on the streets of the Bronx. Malcolm and Sofia (newcomers [...]
Read MoreDisney’s Oz the Great and Powerful is neither an unwatchable, awful film, nor is it anything that anyone not dragged to the theater by coat-tugging children has any need to see. I’m not a hard-core fan of the original Victor Fleming/Judy Garland film (though I certainly don’t dislike or disparage it), and I’ve never read [...]
Read MoreIsraeli director Dror Moreh’s Oscar-nominated documentary The Gatekeepers comes at the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from a previous silent (and secretive) angle: Through the eyes of six former heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security or “secret service” agency. The Shin Bet organization has, over the past four decades, been at the front line [...]
Read MoreAs Hollywood continues its quest for the next Twilight/Harry Potter/Hunger Games franchise sensation, it’s also continuing its laudable practice of (usually) seeking out genuinely talented young actors to personify young adult lit heroes and heroines. This week’s offering is Beautiful Creatures, based on Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s YA supernatural romance. The 2009 novel, the [...]
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