Jake Cole

LATEST ARTICLES ( 682 )

• 50 Book Pledge #15: James Joyce—Finnegans Wake

  Regular readers might remember my original plans to offer regular updates on my trek through Joyce's final and most abstruse work, Finnegans Wake. Read more

  Posted on 24 August 2012 BOOKS

• 4:44: The Last Day on Earth (Abel Ferrara, 2012)

  

  The characters in Abel Ferrara's 4:44: The Last Day on Earth react to the world's impending doom with astonishing calm. Perhaps they, too, are burned out on... Read more

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

• R.I.P. Tony Scott, 1944-2012

  

  I was devastated last night to read of Tony Scott's suicide in Los Angeles. One of the most exciting filmmakers working in Hollywood today, Scott had been on a... Read more

  Posted on 20 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• $upercapitalist (Simon Yin, 2012)

  An anti-hedge fund screed set to a screen saver slideshow of Hong Kong, $upercapitalist clumsily delivers its ideas in stilted chunks that lack the punchy... Read more

  Posted on 19 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Free Radicals: A Story of Experimental Film (Pip Chodorov, 2012)

  The article of Free Radicals' title gives away its main strength and weakness: this is a story of experimental film, not the story. Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Sign 'O' the Times (Prince, 1987)

  

  Like Purple Rain, the film of Sign 'O' the Times matches the album it supports. The former visualizes the artist in ascendancy, matching the jubilant, youthful... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Matinee (Joe Dante, 1993)

  

  Matinee feels like a skeleton key for Joe Dante's entire career. It combines satirical targets and stylistic influences typically given their own feature. Read more

  Posted on 13 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Life, and Nothing More... (Abbas Kiarostami, 1992)

  

  Abbas Kiarostami's Where Is the Friend's Home? was a watershed release, exposing the director to the world and establishing him as a critical and festival... Read more

  Posted on 08 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)

  

  Pedro Almodóvar's films are so stuffed with irony that even the sympathetic streak underneath his wild transgression can sometimes seem a front for even darker... Read more

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

• Where is the Friend's Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)

  

  Where Is the Friend's Home? announces the intimacy of its focus from its opening shot, held on a door in close-up as the credits roll. Read more

  Posted on 06 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Insomnia (1997) Vs. Insomnia (2002)

  With The Dark Knight Rises in theaters, what better time to examine the film that, after Memento, proved to Warner Bros thatChristopher Nolan could handle a... Read more

  Posted on 01 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Runaway Slave (Pritchett Cotten, 2012)

  I tried my best to actually address Runaway Slave, a loathsome new piece of sub-Michael Moore agitprop, rather than simply foam at the mouth. I cannot say to... Read more

  Posted on 01 August 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)

  

  [The following is my July entry for Blind Spots.]Some Came Running opens with antithetical moods. Lush but subtle color paints the bus ride of a soldier... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)

  

  Christopher Nolan's Batman films have seriously, sometimes ponderously, probed the ramifications of superheroes in the "real" world. Read more

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

• 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)

  I continue to love Spike Lee's 25th Hour, one of his most shamelessly white elephant features (topped only by Miracle at St. Anna and, more positively, Malcolm... Read more

  Posted on 26 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Ocean's Twelve (Steven Soderbergh, 2004)

  Ocean's Twelve is one of my favorite Steven Soderbergh films and the best reflexive takedown of the sequel ever made. It jovially begins as a shameless retread... Read more

  Posted on 26 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• First Name: Carmen (Jean-Luc Godard, 1983)

  

  If Passion juxtaposed a largely aimless narrative with another artform, painting, as a means of offering clues to its solution, First Name: Carmen uses music... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Capsule Reviews: Sullivan's Travels, Christmas in July, Hellzapoppin'

  

  Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges)After my intensely negative experience with The Lady Eve, a comedy that struck me as caring more for its subtext than its... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Charles Chaplin's 11 Features

  

  [The following is an entry in the monthly Favorite Directors Blogathon. A master list of my choices for all 12 filmmakers (with links updated as they are posted... Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2012)

  I greatly enjoyed Yorgos Lanthimos' breakthrough feature Dogtooth, even if its nastiness was just a bit too much at times. Alps is no less sardonic, but it... Read more

  Posted on 19 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES