Neither of this things seem like problems to me. The "miscasting" of Nicholson is great because instead of this being the story of a normal man driven insane, it's made to seem like one about a man whose mask of sanity is barely intact in the first place.

I've also liked that reading, and the whole idea that the Overlook is haunted not by native Americans but the conquerors who laid them to waste, stuck eternally in the pique of jazz-age decadence.

It's hard to say. Been listening on my crummy computer. But stay tuned for a proper review. Maybe…next week I think.

I..oh.

You might even say it was a "losing gamble"!

Oh we're aware. I'm listening to it right now. Comes with a free 12-minute live cut of "Holy Mountain"!

It was shot in Sudbury, but made to look like '40s/'50s Toronto, presumably to get that juicy Northern Ontario tax credit.

Best scene is when Glover is shimmying up a ladder and Busey is all, "You go! This is MY fight!" and then gets killed in actually one second and it cuts back to Glover like three rungs higher on the same ladder. What a flick.

I watched The Shining, which ekes up my "Greatest Movies Ever" pantheon every time I see it. Then, incidentally, ended up watching Eyes Wide Shut the same night, which I think is kind of bogged down by some crummy performances and is kind of jokey in places, but no doubt a serious, interesting, and luxe films. Also…

It's playing in second and third run all over Toronto.

That's true. But the whole shift into a junky, crypto-fascist pseudo-state is left out. My roommate was also speculating that Britain seems to excel at ambiguous dystopias (1984, Brazil, even 28 Days Later) because the national/geographic context is able to guarantee a bit of insularity, being that it's a…

I re-watched (half of) Children of Men last night, and was impressed by how well it functioned without anything like thorough backstory. Sure, it sets up the whole fertility crisis thing, but its cause, and the whole history of social downfall, is blissfully left ambiguous. Cuaron has apparently said that "cinema is…

Not sure why the grade/photo wasn't showing up. Should be okay now, though.

No he's right, my hand is covered in trace elements of maple syrup and is just gross. Hope you guys like reviews of sonorous doom and drone albums! And also power metal!

Yeah but The Newsroom ripped off Sanders, it was just harder to spot these things because, you know, no internet. I wrote about it here, a long, long time ago (6 months ago): http://www.avclub.com/toron…

Is this an adaptation of Ken Finkleman's old CBC series, ugh, legally?

Yes, when the film was released theatrically in Canada. It was published on the national site to coincide with the U.S. theatrical release, the assumption being that U.S. audiences aren't necessarily going to see a review for a movie on AVCTO five weeks before the film is released Stateside.

"A swift uppercut of flurrying machismo!" — the corpse of Pauline Kael

To clarify this, I'm really talking about two different things. The first is how the narrative works to recuperate hockey violence, by contextualizing it within the sport and giving it the weight it deserves ("I bleed for my team," etc.). The second is larger, and theme-ier. Like those films by Peckinpah, Penn, etc., G…

I saw two awesome bands: some young upstarts from North Carolina called Last Year's Men, who play thrashy garage rock and are so weird and earnest that it's instantly incredible, and the Wedding Present (i.e. David Gedge and some kids), who played all of Seamonsters and were a delight. I also played about 6 games of…