The Old Man and the Gun (2018)::rating::3.5::rating::3.5::rating::3.5

D uring the Renaissance, the Stradivari family made stringed instruments with such phenomenal craftsmanship that their perfection cannot be reproduced with modern technology. Likewise, I think movie star charisma is a strange, mystical quality--easy to appreciate, impossible to replicate. Take Robert Redford in The Old Man and the Gun. His performance as an aging bank robber…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 31, 20181Comment

Latest The Archive

Hunter Killer (2018)::rating::2.5

M y high school humanities teacher was an adorably quirky woman who had a saying: "The only new invention of the 20th Century was artificial snow. Everything else was done before." I'm not sure how well that statement holds up to scrutiny, but I do enjoy the sentiment behind it. If what's past is truly…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 27, 20180Comments

The Drink Menu

Wines of the West (pairing w/Five Easy Pieces)::rating::0

I f you love classic movies, Five Easy Pieces is one you gotta see. It's one of the top ten American films of the 1970s, in my opinion. If Easy Rider made Jack Nicholson a name, this is where he became a superstar. His character is a meandering, boozy no-account who must return home to his family of wealthy…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 26, 20180Comments

Greatest

Five Easy Pieces (1970)::rating::5

B obby Dupea's life pinballs from one meaningless day to the next, powered by one-night stands and pints of plastic sour mash. He carouses with rowdy shitkickers and toils in menial jobs until the boredom and wanderlust overwhelm him. Bobby is loosely tethered to reality by a curdled relationship with a hee-haw diner waitress, Rayette…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 25, 20180Comments

Latest The Archive

The Hate U Give (2018)::rating::4.5

W hen it comes to depicting teenagers, Hollywood generally puts its characters in two cheap, lazy categories: You have your vacuous, horny drunks on one hand, and drooling, dorky shut-ins on the other. Most teen movies have neither the patience nor the bravery to show complex, intelligent people fumbling through the fog of young adulthood,…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 25, 20181Comment

Laughable

Batman and Robin (1997)::rating::0.5

A s I suffered through the wretchedness of rewatching Batman and Robin, a visual metaphor popped in my head: The grainy footage of man's first failed attempts at flight. You've probably seen the montages before, where intrepid young men with twiddly mustaches and bowler hats mount winged bicycles and half-assed gyrocopters--mechanical ostriches destined to go…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 22, 20180Comments

Latest The Archive

The Sisters Brothers (2018)::rating::3

T he Sisters Brothers takes place at an odd junction in America’s history. It’s 1851, and the American West as we know it is still embryonic. The characters in this film must navigate a social topography where boundless opportunity and unchecked mayhem flow in the same brick-brown river. Murder comes easily; alliances are cheap. Where…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 21, 20182Comments

The Podcast

Cinemavino – Episode 2 “One Small Step for Bland”::rating::0

This week, Travis and I drink a little red wine and talk about "First Man," and the Star Wars franchise. Our wine this week is a blend from Bonny Doon Vineyards called Cigare Volante. It's an American wine inspired by the reds of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, in France. Wines from this area in the Rhone region are consistently…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 20, 20180Comments

Latest

Halloween (2018)::rating::3

T he Halloween franchise now spans forty years, long enough to spawn a host of terrible sequels, cheap knock-offs, and clever send-ups. This latest offering wisely heaves out the garbage from most of those predecessors and hones in on the trend-setting original, where Michael Myers terrorized a young, innocent Jamie Lee Curtis. Like the genre itself, Curtis…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 19, 20180Comments

Laughable

Saving Christmas (2014)::rating::0

"Y ou can't understand someone until you've seen the world through their eyes," Kirk Cameron tells us during Saving Christmas's mawkish opening narration. If nothing else, this film offers a fascinating glimpse into the intractable, sanctimonious way Cameron must view everything and everyone around him. His omnipresent voiceover brims with the serene, cheerful lunacy of…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 15, 20180Comments