Jake Cole

LATEST ARTICLES ( 682 )

• Harakiri (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962)

  

  As with so many other Japanese directors, Masaki Kobayashi used the jidai-geki genre and its focus upon the past to comment on the present. Read more

  Posted on 08 November 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Hipsters (Valery Todorovsky, 2011)

  After three years, Valery Todorovsky's unorthodox musical Hipsters has finally received a proper, non-festival release on these shores. Read more

  Posted on 08 November 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström, 1921)

  

  The Phantom Carriage is such a spellbinding technical achievement it's easy to overlook just how gentle and suggestive it is. Its ghostly apparitions float... Read more

  Posted on 06 November 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Capsule Reviews: Head, His Girl Friday, Elite Squad

  

  Head (Bob Rafelson, 1968)If you ever wanted to know what A Hard Day's Night might have resembled had Richard Lester teamed up with the Beatles post-Revolver,... Read more

  Posted on 05 November 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Stuff I Like: Ornette Coleman

  

  It’s a wonder I ever got into Ornette Coleman at all. When I first started assembling some basic jazz albums for a starter collection for the genre, I included... Read more

  Posted on 04 November 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC

• In Time Film Review

  

  It almost pains me to dismiss an Andrew Niccol film, as I think he should be encouraged. He takes the notion of "high concept" to heart, even if those concepts... Read more

  Posted on 03 November 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Three Musketeers (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2011)

  

  The Three Musketeers is stiff, awkward, preposterous, and defiantly stupid. It is also, to my bafflement, a remarkably fun time, with equal pleasures to be had... Read more

  Posted on 02 November 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, 2011)

  

  Take Shelter is not merely a gripping psychological thriller about whether a man is losing his grip on reality or his hallucinatory visions are omens. It is als... Read more

  Posted on 01 November 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)

  

  Hou Hsaio-hsien's A City of Sadness opens on perhaps the most solemn moment of celebration I've ever seen in a film. Over the black credits screen comes the... Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)

  

  Long seen as the French answer to Alfred Hitchcock, Henri-Georges Clouzot managed to surpass his British yin with Les diaboliques. Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols, 2008)

  

  Son Hayes (Michael Shannon) bears more scars than the shotgun marks on his back. His monosyllabic name, a description more than an identity, speaks to a... Read more

  Posted on 28 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Other F Word (Andrea Blaugrund, 2011)

  Andrea Blaugrund combines the two safest, dullest documentary subjects—bands and children—into one tedious ride with The Other F Word. Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki, 2011)

  Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre is so intelligent and well-composed that at no point did I see its unflinching optimism as the usual Hollywood approach of burying... Read more

  Posted on 25 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Record Club 6: Miles Davis, Agharta

  

  Miles Davis’ Agharta—and, to a lesser extent, its sister record Pangaea—embodies the various dichotomies and outright contradictions of the artist's growth to... Read more

  Posted on 24 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC

• Cold Fish (Sion Sono, 2010)

  

  [The following is being considered for 2011 evaluations.]Sion Sono openly states the narrative conflict of his thriller Cold Fish during the first on-screen... Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Man Without a Past (Aki Kaurismäki, 2002)

  

  The Man Without a Past occupies the nebulous realms between emotions and moods. It's deadpan-comic and entropic-tragic, ironic and optimistic, detached and... Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Woman (Lucky McKee, 2011)

  Hey, so I have a new writing gig at Spectrum Culture. I'll be getting screeners every now and then for films that I otherwise wouldn't get to see until well int... Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2011 MOVIES

• May (Lucky McKee, 2002)

  

  Lucky McKee's May belongs to the small group of horror films as likely to make you cry as scream. Its protagonist rates with the children of Let the Right One I... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Terri (Azazel Jacobs, 2011)

  

  Terri feels like the film the Duplass brothers' intended crossover Cyrus wanted to be, even if its subject matter is different and the overall quality of the tw... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Brian De Palma: Mission to Mars

  

  Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars is the film you'd least expect the maker of gory, cynical deconstruction machine who delighted in adhering to genre tropes as... Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES