Culture Warrior

Column.

Culture Warrior: The ‘Limits’ of Directorial Self-Indulgence

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Landon takes a look at Jim Jarmusch’s new film and other meaningless movies that are meaningless.

Culture Warrior: ‘Obsessed’ and the Canon of the Awesomely Bad

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Bad films give audiences a rare type of power, and when films fall flat on their face, the result can be spectacular.

Culture Warrior: 80s on Film

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This week, Landon asks why some recent movies have treated the Reagan era so damn seriously.

Culture Warrior: The Cinematic Endurance Test

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This week, Landon looks at Hunger and asks why we watch movies that are hard to watch.

Culture Warrior: The 21st Century Movie Star

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For better or for worse, Hollywood works differently now, and a pretty face just doesn’t sell tickets anymore.

Culture Warrior: Bromance and its Predecessors

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With this weekend’s release of I Love You, Man, the recent trend of comedies centered on platonic male relationships—the ‘bromance’—is articulated to its furthest extent thus far, taking the traditional genre formula of the romantic comedy and replacing the traditional male-female love story with two heterosexual males. While this trend of celebrating intimate male friendships is pervasive and seemingly wholly new in mainstream American comedies, the determining predecessors for this trend, and its balance of male and female characters, contains roots in canonical films of 1960s and 70s New Hollywood.

Culture Warrior: Watchmen and the Epic Running Time

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This week, Landon explores the world of long movies. Really long movies.

Culture Warrior: This Week in Non-Fiction

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I’m going to force the interwebs to take a momentary break from continuing to go nuts over Watchmen this weekend and take a look at a couple of documentaries below the radar…

Culture Warrior: Mickey, Sean, and Paul Haggis Progressivism

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First of all I need to preface this post by saying that I don’t believe the Oscars matter in the least. Sure, they’re fun to vote on, discuss, and are (apparently) a great excuse to party on a boat, but, ultimately, whoever takes home the gold at the end of the night only matters to those who actually attended the ceremony.