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
477 Articles
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
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…
Popdose Staff
1 Min Read
As the decade draws to a close, the Popdose staff looks back at its favorite films of the last 10 years.
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…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
After a more than a decade in Hollywood 33-year-old Robert Redford broke through as a major star in 1969’s smash hit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But he had…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
The extras-rich Criterion Collection version of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987) is perfectly timed to seize the moment. The subject of the film is dividing lines—between fallible humans and…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Critics have split over The Men Who Stare at Goats — some find it an amusing military satire, while others reject it as unfunny mush. Which side is Bob Cashill on?
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Quick—what won Best Foreign Film at this year’s Academy Awards? If you recalled Departures, from Japan, take a bow. Like most foreign film winners, the movie was pretty much forgotten…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Movie ballyhoo is in good shape this Halloween season. The made-for-$10,000 Paranormal Activity has become a runaway hit, thanks to clever Internet marketing. ”Chaos reigns” T-shirts are being hawked (or…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
One of my favorite moviegoing experiences occurred when I lived in San Jose, CA, and decided one weeknight to see Lars von Trier’s Zentropa (1991). The Danish filmmaker and provocateur…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Michelle Pfeiffer was an Academy Award nominee for Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons (1988), for which screenwriter Christopher Hampton took home a statuette. But I don’t expect literary adaptation lightning to…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
At long last, Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are arrives in theaters this weekend. Did Bob Cashill have a wild rumpus at his screening, or did he send Jonze to bed without supper?
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Nick Hornby’s been a busy man lately — not only does he have a new book out, but he penned the screenplay for this coming-of-age drama, which is already earning Oscar buzz for star Carey Mulligan.
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Writer/director David Mamet and co-star William H. Macy have a good time reminiscing on the commentary track that accompanies the Criterion Collection edition of Homicide (1991). This “cop movie that…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
The 47th annual edition of the New York Film Festival kicks off tonight at Lincoln Center. Except for last year’s paternity leave I’ve attended every one since 1994. Back before…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
In the HBO/BBC co-production Into the Storm, a visibly moved Winston Churchill (played, in an Emmy-winning performance, by Brendan Gleeson) screens his favorite movie, That Hamilton Woman (1941), for guests….
Bob Cashill
2 Min Read
There aren’t many bankable stars at the movies in 2009 — but Meryl Streep is one of the last ones standing, and as Bob Cashill notes, she’s earned her stature.
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Bob Cashill helps bring Beatles Week to its spine-tingling conclusion with a look at the Fab Four at the movies — after they broke up, of course. Give our regards to Broad Street, would you?
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Summer’s over, and it’s got Bob Cashill in a reflective mood as he looks back on what worked — and what didn’t — at the cinema this blockbuster season.
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
A 201-minute Belgian film described as a “domestic 2001” could inspire reams of pretentious criticism, but I found Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) pretty easy to…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
I should cut Whit Stillman some slack. He got his start as a feature filmmaker at age 38 with the acclaimed Metropolitan (1990)–the right time to look backwards with a…
Bob Cashill
1 Min Read
Bob Cashill has just gotten back from Taking in a screening of Ang Lee’s latest. Does he wish he could give it back? Read this week’s No Concessions to find out.