Jake Cole

LATEST ARTICLES ( 682 )

• Favorite Directors Blogathon

  My blogging buddy Carson Lund recently told me about a meme started by Loren Rosson that highlights a favorite director each month and ranks his or her best... Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT

• The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925)

  I adored Chaplin's The Gold Rush the first time I saw it, taking to its deft comic staging and its occasional, well-judged sentimentality. Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• ¡Que Viva Mexico! (Sergei Eisenstein, 1932/1979)

  

  ¡Que Viva Mexico! marks the first time Sergei Eisenstein truly hit a wall during production, though unlike his later hassles with Stalin's censors, the... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Stella Days (Thaddeus O'Sullivan, 2012)

  Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Stella Days is pianissimo drama about an old Irish priest and his muted sorrow that gets so bogged down on its vague sense of misery that... Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• A Burning Hot Summer (Philippe Garrel, 2012)

  Oh, that I had watched a Philippe Garrel film before this. Routinely praised by critics, Garrel has been a major blind spot of mine for some time, so I was happ... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, 2012)

  

  Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man would be a decent movie if it had nothing to do with comic books. When left to his own devices, Andrew Garfield gives Peter... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• 50 Book Pledge #14: Simon Reynolds — Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk...

  

  The post-punk era of music charted in Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again constitutes my favorite period of popular (sic) music of the last century. Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT

• Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)

  

  Andrzej Zulawski's Possession does not begin as a horror film, but it certainly feels scary from the start. Mark (Sam Neill) returns after a long absence from... Read more

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

• 5 Neglected Superhero Films

  

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  Posted on 03 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh, 2012)

  

  In retrospect, the links between Steven Soderbergh's male stripper movie Magic Mike and The Girlfriend Experience, his 2009 experiment starring a porn star as... Read more

  Posted on 02 July 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Capsule Reviews: While the City Sleeps, Cracking Up, The Kid, Rock of Ages

  

  While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang, 1956)Fritz Lang's underseen noir blends the yellowest of journalism with King Lear in a prescient, savage view of media... Read more

  Posted on 29 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Every Man for Himself (Jean-Luc Godard, 1980)

  

  In a stroke of peevish irony, Jean-Luc Godard's Sauve qui peut (la vie), touted even by the director as his return to cinema, is a film of reactionary social... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Opeth: Blackwater Park/Deliverance/Damnation

  I reviewed some reissues of Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth's early 2000s output for Spectrum Culture. I've been an admirer of Opeth for a while,... Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MUSIC

• The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946)

  

  [The following is my June entry for Blind Spots.]More than one person has referred to William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives as the "best" Best Picture... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Brave (Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, 2012)

  

  Brave is at once the most visually distinctive project Pixar has yet made and their most derivative work. Slightly dimmed as if filmed by natural light, the... Read more

  Posted on 25 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Extraterrestrial (Nacho Vigalondo, 2012)

  I wish I could better put my finger on what felt amiss about Extraterrestrial. There's nothing really wrong with the movie: it follows its low-key mash-up of... Read more

  Posted on 22 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Blu-Ray Review: Green Lantern

  

  [I received this disc from Warner Bros. as part of their Blu-Ray Elite program.]FilmGreen Lantern feels like the superhero equivalent of post-Twilight takes on... Read more

  Posted on 21 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Corpo Celeste (Alice Rohrwacher, 2012)

  I have a love-hate relationship with realist cinema, a love for the movies that genuinely capture a naturalistic tone while also evoking something, and general... Read more

  Posted on 20 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• A Tale of Two Vampyres

  My latest piece at Spectrum Culture is a comparison between F.W. Murnau's seminal Nosferatu and Werner Herzog's 1979 remake starring his greatest on-screen... Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• In a Year of 13 Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978)

  

  [This is an post for the Queer Film Blogathon, co-hosted by Pussy Goes Grrr and Garbo Laughs.]Made in the aftermath of his lover Armin Meier's suicide, Rainer... Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2012 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES