Is Wes Anderson a good filmmaker? Does he make good films? The thing is, those are two separate and different questions. He’s got such a distinctive visual style and way of storytelling that even if you’ve never seen one of his movies, you probably have a pretty good idea of what they’re like. Or…hell, maybe you don’t! Let’s go over a few details to help you identify Anderson’s work, should you encounter it in the wild. Anderson likes to work with the same people as much as possible. He’s helped to recontextualize and launch the careers of actors like Bill Murray, Owen Wilson,... Read More

The point of a biopic is to understand its subject. Isn’t it? I think so, though, for a long time, biopics seemed to exist to portray every significant moment in a person’s life, then sum it all up.* The best ones, however, examine a period of time or series of moments, then focus on behavior to tell us who someone is. The Social Network and Steve Jobs are just a few of the better offerings we’ve seen in the last few years. But what happens when a biopic fundamentally doesn’t get its subject? An excellent example of this is 1989’s Wired, which focused on John Belushi. It was based on... Read More