1953 ... What a Year!

Because I have been busy watching some classics on the big screen, I really did not have time to see anything new at the cinema lately - and honestly, the latest Pirates debacle will take some time to recover from.

Having previously only experienced these films on television screens of varying sizes, they were even more impressive this time around. Surely, despite the convenience home viewing provides, nothing beats seeing a film at the cinema. I could have written reviews or some reflections on these cinematic pilgrimages, but I didn't for a couple of resons:

1. What can I possibly add to what has already been said about Earth, Man with a Movie Camera, Taxi Driver or Apocalypse Now?
2. I am not feeling particularly inspired to write anything that doesn't read like it came out of my left nostril after a heavy night of drinking.

Cinewise Throwback - Gone Baby Gone (2007)

When I first moved out to Los Angeles just over three years ago, the first movie I saw in theaters was Rob Zombie's Halloween remake. 

It was not a promising start.

A month later we got Gone Baby Gone, a film that simultaneously reminded me why I loved Boston so much, and why I'd decided to move 3,000 miles away from it.  Ben Affleck's directorial debut is a striking testament to the power of cinema, to it's ability to make us think, make us feel, and make us do. 

Three years later, as Affleck's sophomore effort cements him as a film force, I look back at what I said about his debut then...

WWDMCD: LOST's Final Countdown

LOST has been limping towards the finish line these last couple weeks, speeding along in a bizarre three-legged race of island mythology, castaway survival games and Sideways World drama. Its final season has been intriguing, invigorating and occasionally frustrating, and no two-episode span better captured that than this latest one-two punch of “Across the Sea” and “What They Died For”.

As the penultimate episode in a historic series, “What They Died For” gave us some serious answers and did some serious setup. But I’d also argue they made some serious mistakes. As LOST winds down, I can’t help but feel that the great and formidable minds behind it are moving to the wrong beats. There isn’t enough time. There isn’t enough pull in the story. And when we DO get the motivated drama the final countdown calls for, it just doesn’t seem to hit right.