Jake Cole

LATEST ARTICLES ( 682 )

• Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958)

  

  Elevator to the Gallows is a brilliantly constructed misdirection, moving so quickly into a premeditated murder that, in retrospect, it's only natural that the... Read more

  Posted on 10 August 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt, 2011)

  

  Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a fear du jour-updating reboot of the apes-take-over-Earth franchise, has just enough creativity in it that its problematic whol... Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Capsule Reviews: Cronos, Smiles of a Summer Night,

  

  Cronos (Guillermo Del Toro, 1993)Admittedly more of a primer for Guillermo Del Toro's career to come than a great work in its own right, Cronos is nevertheless ... Read more

  Posted on 08 August 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Love Exposure (Sion Sono, 2008)

  

  The warped Catholicism of Sion Sono's four-hour epic Love Exposure is fitting, given how the director clearly seeks to kill aesthetic gods. Read more

  Posted on 07 August 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Comment Ça Va (Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville, 1976)

  

  Despite the blatant reflexivity of the film's premise, Comment ça va might have been a remarkably straightforward film about a newspaperman making an... Read more

  Posted on 06 August 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Music Room (Satyajit Ray, 1959)

  My review for Satyajit Ray's breathtaking The Music Room is up now at Cinelogue. A story of tradition and modernity clashing in egotistical microcosm, The... Read more

  Posted on 04 August 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• La Nuit Du Carrefour (Jean Renoir, 1932)

  

  La Nuit du Carrefour is so atmospheric and vague that the absence of an entire reel is scarcely noticeable unless you've been alerted to the fact. Read more

  Posted on 01 August 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949)

  

  When I posted my review for The Public Enemy recently, I was lambasted by a Cagney fan for spoiling the movie, something I found amusing because A) it is 80... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston, 2011)

  

  Captain America: The First Avenger is so enjoyable it prompts not merely a reevaluation of the relevant worth of a superhero intrinsically tied to an outdated... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946)

  

  Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête is at once deeply fantastical in its fairy tale set design and ethereal cinematography and strikingly real in its class... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)

  

  The theme of duality runs indirectly through many Hitchcock films, with the ironic alignment of two individuals in his wrong-man thrillers and the fetished... Read more

  Posted on 19 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (David Yates, 2011)

  

  [I guess I should issue a spoiler warning for this review, but honestly, if you've neither read the book nor seen the movie yet are still reading reviews... Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Jane Campion's Short Films: Peel, Passionless Moments, A Girl's Own Story

  

  An Exercise in Discipline: Peel An Exercise in Discipline: Peel opens Jane Campion's career with a bang. It starts with an echoing tap eventually revealed to... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969)

  

  Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 masterpiece, Army of Shadows, opens on a shot so darkly ironic that its minimalism scours out any potential fleck out of humor. A... Read more

  Posted on 16 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Capsule Reviews: Moulin Rouge!, A Corner in Wheat, 31/75 Aysl

  

  Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)A pop culture kaleidosope-cum-travesty, Moulin Rouge! is as unbearable as it is enthralling, always at once, all throughout th... Read more

  Posted on 16 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Harry Potter Books, Ranked

  

  Compared to my marked indifference to the films, the Harry Potter books continue to charm me long after I move beyond YA fiction. The endless exposition does ge... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Capsule Reviews: In the Heat of the Night, Something Wild, Gentlemen Prefer...

  

  In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)I put off watching this film for years because it struck me as Hollywood moralizing that would inevitably resort... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Harry Potter Films, Ranked

  

  With the final installment of the Harry Potter film franchise at last upon us, allow me to briefly take stock of a film franchise that has often failed to... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• A Perfect World (Clint Eastwood, 1993)

  

  A Perfect World takes plays in the days before John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas as a prison breakout in Huntsville leads to the taking of a hostage... Read more

  Posted on 13 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Brian De Palma: Carlito's Way

  

  I used to think Carlito's Way was, to quote the popular interpretation, an "apology" for Scarface, a toned-down, mature take on that film's criminal excess... Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2011 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO