Way back in my film school days, I had an interaction with a favorite cousin whom I had not seen in some time. This opportunity to reconnect saw our first interaction since I had been accepted as a film student, and so he asked me what basically everyone asks me right after I tell them I’m studying film, “So, like what’s your favorite movie, then?” When approached with this question, at least by associates who are not necessarily film buffs, my default response is usually something I know has been on Netflix in the last year. (Though if I had to pick an answer ... maybe Silver Linings Playbook .) I think this time I said James Cameron’s Titanic . He then had a sort of illuminated reaction and followed up with, “I see, so you like … old movies.” My response to this was something in the vein of, “Well, yes , but NOOOO …” Steven Spielberg being a 29-year-old on the set of Jaws In academic circles, t he demarcation between “c...
It can feel hackneyed, and even a little lazy, to echo that oft-repeated sentiment that “they really just don’t make ‘em like they used to.” That kind of nostalgic wallowing has us forget that, yeah, even the old masters sometimes produced real stinkers. And it’s also not fair to the many storytellers today who, working against ever turbulent conditions, still manage to create something deeply profound and worthy of the deepest reverences … But there are absolutely times where it’s really easy to believe this anyways. Let me explain by describing my recent experience watching Argylle for the first time earlier this year. The film was designed as a spin-off from the “Kingsmen” franchise and saw poor Bryce Dallas Howard playing Elly, a reclusive spy novelist, whose life is turned upside down when a host of malicious agents converge on her demanding that she write her final book because the events in her novels have predicted real w...