Having starred in a deliciously odd self-portrait by and of Charlie Kaufman, ADAPTATION, Nicolas Cage has waited two decades to take the surreal meta-plunge again and waiting for just the right script has paid off for him and for us. In THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT, he plays a fictionalized version of himself, hamstrung… Read More »
THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME
There is much that is very right with THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME. There is also much that is very wrong with it. It makes for an irksome cinematic experience in which one finds oneself rooting for the flick to pull itself together before the final credits. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t happen. The kitschy-coo title… Read More »
MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE — Peter Landesman Interview
I loved that Peter Landesman had the same reaction that I did when Deep Throat was finally revealed. That would be “Who’s that?” Bob Woodward’s source for the reporting that eventually brought down the Nixon administration was Mark Felt, an FBI man who kept a low profile while violating his personal code of ethics in… Read More »
OPERATION AVALANCHE — Matt Johnson & Matt Miller Interview
After seeing OPERATION AVALANCHE, a whipsmart found-footage faux-documentary about how we didn’t land on the moon in 1969, it came as no surprise that its director/co-star/co-writer Matt Johnson and producer Matt Miller were so erudite and so witty. When we spoke on September 19, 2016, my first question was about why we love conspiracy theories so… Read More »
OPERATION AVALANCHE
There is something irresistible about a well-constructed conspiracy theory. The juxtaposition between the secret hands behind the scenes pulling the strings that control our destiny, and the peculiar sense of security that the world is not just a series of random events, that there is an order to it even if he have no collective… Read More »
ZERO DAYS — Alex Gibney, Eric Chien & Liam O’Murchu
Liam O’Murchu was the first person at Symantec to see the STUXnet code, and, as he told me when we talked on May 11, 2016, red flags went off about the elegant coding and suspicious dearth of bugs. I was interviewing him along with his colleague, Eric Chien and with Alex Gibney, the documentarian who… Read More »
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE is everything that the perfect bromance flick should be, starting with the improbable but undeniable chemistry between stars Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson. Add a script that shows them off to best effect, with its wicked sense of the absurdity and suspense of the situations in which these two find themselves, and what… Read More »
CRIMINAL
CRIMINAL is a trifle of a thriller. Sure, guns are fired, things explode, and Ryan Reynolds meets a grisly end shortly after the flick begins, but the necessary tension to keep us all on the edge of our seats is noticeably lacking. What we are left with is an intriguing premise, Gary Oldman at his… Read More »
13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI
With his trademark bombast, Michael Bay addresses the tragedy of Benghazi with great attention to the details of battle, and only the most superficial of attitudes towards everything else. Based on the book by Mitchell Zuckoff that recounted the 2012 attack by local insurgents on the temporary American embassy and the CIA station in that… Read More »
MOONWALKERS
It’s not that I believe every conspiracy theory that comes along, it’s just that I have a serious weakness for the imagination that goes into some of them. And so it is with the theory that while Apollo 11 may or may not have actually landed on the moon in 1969, the footage that we… Read More »