Jake Cole

LATEST ARTICLES ( 682 )

• The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

  

  Joaquin Phoenix's Freddie Quell is a man so wracked by his carnal urges that he walks in convulsive, post-coital spasms and pants in ragged thrusts when he runs. Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Dredd (Pete Travis, 2012)

  

  Of the many pleasures to be found in Dredd, Pete Travis' lean, nasty bottle episode of a film, perhaps the greatest is the lack of cumbersome setup that so... Read more

  Posted on 24 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Samsara (Ron Fricke, 2012)

  

  Ron Fricke's latest tone poem, Samsara, takes its name from a concept shared among Indian religions pertaining to life, death and rebirth. Read more

  Posted on 21 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Capsule Reviews: Wavelength, Begone Dull Care, Bezhin Meadow

  

  Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1967)Michael Snow' legendary 45-minute structuralist work feels about three times its length, a slow zoom across a vast, near-empty... Read more

  Posted on 20 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Ornette: Made in America (Shirley Clarke, 1985)

  Restored and reissued by Milestone Film, Ornette: Made in America offers a fascinating visualization of some of the most exciting music of the 20th century. Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Resident Evil: Retribution (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2012)

  

  The Resident Evil movies have elevated the "It was all a dream" conceit into the longest-running Simpsons rake gag in cinema. In the series' expansion ever... Read more

  Posted on 17 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Robot & Frank (Jake Schreier, 2012)

  

  Befitting a movie about a man losing his memory, Frank Langella's character in Robot Frank is also named Frank to keep things simple. And true to the title,... Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Beauty Is Embarrassing (Neil Berkeley, 2012)

  Wayne White is too fascinating a character for the staid documentary techniques of Beauty Is Embarrassing. In fact, I found myself wishing I could have just see... Read more

  Posted on 11 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Planet of the Apes (1968) Vs. Planet of the Apes (2001)

  For Spectrum Culture's Re-Make/Re-Model series, I have tried to discuss remakes with artistic credibility in their own right, to show that not every retread is... Read more

  Posted on 10 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Prince: Prince (1979)

  

  So much of Prince's eponymous sophomore effort can be summarized by its hysterical cover. Where For You functioned as primarily a disco record, Prince fit more... Read more

  Posted on 07 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Dragon Eyes (John Hyams, 2012)

  

  If there is any justice in this world, John Hyams will not have to suffer in his direct-to-DVD or VOD-first-release purgatory for much longer. Read more

  Posted on 06 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Universal Soldier: Regeneration (John Hyams, 2010)

  

  John Hyams' Universal Soldier: Regeneration, the third official installment of the Universal Soldier series and fifth overall, was released ignominiously... Read more

  Posted on 05 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee, 2006)

  I have not seen Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke in five years, and in that time I had not only forgotten what a superb documentary it is, but also how... Read more

  Posted on 04 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Premium Rush Movie Review

  

  David Koepp's Premium Rush feels like the first posthumous tribute to the work of the late Tony Scott. Unintentional, of course, but beneficial for those of us... Read more

  Posted on 03 September 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Prince: For You (1978)

  

  Before Prince Rogers Nelson turned 20 years old, he cut his teeth in a funk group where he soon eclipsed peer and mentor alike, got himself an astonishingly... Read more

  Posted on 30 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• (ParaNorman, Sam Fell & Chris Butler, 2012)

  

  The stop-motion animation studio Laika follows up their superlative work on Henry Selick's 2009 Coraline with another adventure-horror film that offers... Read more

  Posted on 29 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

  

  Life, and Nothing More... undercut Where Is the Friend's Home? by acknowledging the falseness of its diegetic reality as it added another layer of... Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2012 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Side By Side (Christopher Kenneally, 2012)

  Side By Side is, thankfully, not merely a mere account of aesthetic differences between film and digital. Instead, it asks serious questions about what... Read more

  Posted on 27 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• The Top 10 Steven Soderbergh Films

  

  [This is my August entry in the Favorite Directors Blogathon.]Steven Soderbergh operates so far under the radar that, for all his auteurist tics and varied... Read more

  Posted on 24 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• 50 Book Pledge #16: Laurent Binet—HHhH: A Novel

  If two things in this world have been done to death they are the WWII historical novel and glib, self-referential postmodernism that sidesteps narrative for... Read more

  Posted on 24 August 2012 BOOKS