I first saw Michael Sheen in his native England, in a 1999 National Theatre revival of John Osborne’s ”angry young man” play Look Back in Anger. I’d heard that he…
Bob Cashill
479 Articles
An Editorial Board Member of Cineaste magazine, Bob is also a member of the Drama Desk theatrical critics society in New York. See what he's watching on Letterboxd and read more from him at New York Theater News.
Bob Cashill
7 Min Read
The Wizard of Oz has influenced every movie made since it opened in 1939, or so I’ve read. Off the top of my head I’m not so sure: On the…
Bob Cashill
2 Min Read
One of the few upsets at this year’s tepid Academy Awards was Precious beating Up in the Air for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film had won scripting awards from the…
Bob Cashill
2 Min Read
Note to self: Sentiment outranks everything else when picking a Best Foreign Language Film winner in the Oscar pool. I’m not-so-secretly pleased that the stone-cold, auteurist-approved White Ribbon didn’t blue-ribbon…
Bob Cashill
3 Min Read
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) paired Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the nick of time. Two years later 55-year-old Chan is playing the Mr. Miyagi part in the Karate Kid…
Bob Cashill
7 Min Read
Almost three years ago to the day I posted on my blog an open letter to my long-time crush object Sandra Bullock. The news was not good. Read on… Dear…
Bob Cashill
5 Min Read
”Film culture today,” I muttered, as I waded through (and into) an unusually bothersome post on the usually half-annoying (but compulsively readable) Hollywood Elsewhere site. Look: It’s OK not to…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
The documentarian who co-produced The War Room enters the battlefield of fashion with Vogue editor Anna (“Nuclear”) Wintour in The September Issue, out on DVD.
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
I have a Clint Eastwood problem. But a new mega-set of his movies, Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros., obliges me to take the long view. This…
Bob Cashill
3 Min Read
Solid craftsmanship disguises some rickety timber in The House of the Devil. Writer/director/editor Ti West says in one of the DVD’s two commentary tracks that he had Polanski and Kubrick…
Bob Cashill
4 Min Read
Roberto Rossellini’s status as a father of neorealism is eclipsed by his notoriety as the father of Isabella Rossellini. His adulterous affair with Ingrid Bergman in the 50s touched off…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
“It doesn’t get any easier trying to bring these characters to life,” says the star of the Oscar-nominated Coen brothers film, out now on DVD.
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
From Avatar to the Transformers sequel, from Up in the Air to the depths of Obsessed, a look back at the highs and lows of 2009 as awards season takes shape.
Bob Cashill
4 Min Read
1984 was a great year for foreign-language and independent cinema in the U.S. Off the top of my head I can recall seeing the following at Chicago’s Fine Arts Theater,…
Bob Cashill
9 Min Read
If the Oscars are truly serious about slimming down the Academy should just mail Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique their supporting performer awards. Or hand them over at next Tuesday’s nominations…
Bob Cashill
4 Min Read
Giant insects were all the rage in the nuclear-obsessed 50s—the king-sized ants of Them! (1954) led to an all-out assault of creepy-crawlies, with Tarantula (1955), The Black Scorpion (1957), The…
Bob Cashill
3 Min Read
You’d think that with all the miracles that CGI is capable of someone in Hollywood would figure out what to do with Bruce Willis’ hair. In Surrogates, out today on…
Bob Cashill
3 Min Read
By the early 80s Robert Altman was at an impasse in Hollywood. The success of MASH (1970) and Nashville (1975) was mitigated by numerous critical and/or financial flops, including Quintet…
Bob Cashill
6 Min Read
Over the holidays I read Robert Sellers’ Hellraisers, whose subtitle, ”The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed” pretty much tells you what…
Bob Cashill
3 Min Read
Some stage plays and musicals are adapted into films. Others are simply filmed. That would seem to be the easier gig—but if you’ve suffered through one where the camera never…
Bob Cashill
2 Min Read
Time waits for no critic. I still have to see, much less review, end-of-the-aughts releases like Up in the Air and The Lovely Bones and Nine but here it is…
Bob Cashill
7 Min Read
In a recessionary year most of the holiday releases have slimmed-down grab bag budgets, but two come in outsized, wrapped-and-ribboned boxes. Sherlock Holmes would seem to be destined for Dad,…
Bob Cashill
5 Min Read
“The best seasonal film of all time. I wish I had kids. I’d make them watch it every year and if they didn’t like it, they’d be punished.” –John Waters…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
The received wisdom was that the even-numbered entries in the pre-reboot Star Trek series were better than the odd-numbered ones. That held up, too, until the 10th and final one…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
I reviewed The Hangover when it was a big hit in June, then watched as it snowballed into a phenomenon. It’s the fourth top-grossing movie of 2009 to date and…
Bob Cashill
5 Min Read
The Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man is in theaters. Michael Douglas is starring in Solitary Man, coming soon. Opening today is A Single Man, with Colin Firth as a serious,…
Bob Cashill
8 Min Read
The ”Golden Age of Television” is roughly defined as that period from the early 50s to the very early 60s when productions broadcast live captivated millions of viewers. As the…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Someone at Columbia Pictures has it in for us. Besides the demolition derby of 2012 the studio also recently released the end-of-the-Earth horror comedy Zombieland and Angels & Demons, whose…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
The Criterion Collection has an agreement with IFC Films to put some of its more noteworthy acquisitions on DVD, and so we have Matteo Garrone’s outstanding Gomorrah. I reviewed the…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Thanksgiving: For some, that time of the year to reconnect with friends and family, to eat plenty of turkey and trimmings, and figure out what to gift Aunt Ida with…