Jake Cole

LATEST ARTICLES ( 682 )

• Martin Scorsese, Ranked

  I had originally planned to do a long-form essay of some kind about Martin Scorsese for Film.com, but as the year-end deluge of deadlines (to say nothing of... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• White Reindeer (Zach Clark, 2013)

  I saw White Reindeer earlier in the year, and it was in my top 10 until the very last week before I had to submit polls to various publications. Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Year-End Polls

  I always enjoy lists; as tedious and nakedly clickbait-y as they can be, I often use the more idiosyncratic lists out there to direct my attention to movies... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• The Worst Films of 2013

  I must confess I no longer get the immature thrill out of lambasting films that I once did, nor are worst-of lists worth the inevitable hassle of angry... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Blu-Ray Review: The Big Gundown

  Major props to Grindhouse Releasing, who have put out a few Blu-Rays but truly come into their own with their handling of The Big Gundown. Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project

  Criterion has had a solid, if largely unremarkable year, but when they've hit (the Rossellini/Bergman set, a restored Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Zatoichi!... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)

  

  [The following is a belated Blind Spots entry.]The precision of Raymond Chandler’s prose is rendered almost sleepily in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, tradin... Read more

  Posted on 28 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• My Top 50 First-Time Watches of 2013

  

  This was the year I was fortunate enough to see a notable rise in my freelance bookings, and thus my writing mainly focused on new releases (I will try and... Read more

  Posted on 27 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Blu-Ray Review: Assault on Precinct 13 (Shout! Factory)

  For a film that holds so few surprises, in which everything has been chosen for its economy, not its mystery, Assault on Precinct 13 nevertheless impresses... Read more

  Posted on 20 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• DVD Review: Computer Chess (Kino)

  I belatedly caught up with Computer Chess when I received a DVD copy to review, and oh what an utter delight of a picture, what reassurance that American... Read more

  Posted on 18 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)

  Oh, I'm starting to hate Paolo Sorrentino. After his decent but Scorsese-cribbing Il Divo, I never got to his This Must Be the Place, and after this ostensible... Read more

  Posted on 18 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Breakfast with Curtis (Laura Colella, 2013)

  Breakfast with Curtis starts out with a man threatening a child and the child's father threatening the man, yet the movie proves otherwise free of conflict, a... Read more

  Posted on 16 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Faust (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2013)

  By turns intoxicating and repellent, Faust is definitely a Sokurov film, but its adaptation of the Faust legend is so perverse I cannot help but find it... Read more

  Posted on 13 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Blu-Ray Review: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Criterion)

  What a delight this film is, a caustic satire of untouchable authority and the manner in which our socially ingrained sense of certain people can lead us away... Read more

  Posted on 13 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• The Best Charlie Chaplin Short Films

  Oh, Chaplin. The director I once thought was too simple compared to Keaton and too maudlin in otherwise great comedies has since emerged as one of my three of... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Criminally Underrated: Paul W.S. Anderson

  I could (and, hopefully someday, will) go longer and more in-depth on Paul W.S. Anderson given the time and inclination, but for now this is a brief overview... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• The Internet in Movies

  After seeing the howling bad The Fifth Estate, I got to wondering about how Hollywood repeatedly and utterly fails to comprehend the Internet, even in... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Capital (Costa-Gavras, 2013)

  Oof, Costa-Gavras, how the mighty have fallen. Capital could have been any one of the recent Hollywood spate of disgustingly sympathetic portrayals of... Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Final Warner Archive Picks

  Sadly discontinued (I enjoyed this feature, not to mention free access to Warner's streaming service), here are the last few weeks of my picks of great films... Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO

• Ben Watson — Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation

  Despite my love for free jazz, I've long struggled with some of the guitarists to circle around that movement, most especially Derek Bailey, whose brand of... Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, MUSIC, TV & VIDEO