Bye Bye Birdie — Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Here to Stay
Bye Bye Birdie, George Sidney’s candy-colored adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, arrived in theaters on the eve of pivotal moments in the histories of both the musical genre in […]
Tag Archives: high school
Double Feature: “The Kids Are Losing Their Minds”
From the beginning, rock music was pitched toward the young. The generational schisms opened early and often, with teenagers eager to assert cultural power like never before. Rock may have […]
Baby Paul’s First Weekend: Letterboxd Reviews
Here’s a reminder that I’ve been writing capsule reviews for my latest movie retrospective over on Letterboxd. Below are five of them, selected for movies that are either distinctive or […]
Uh … 3 ½? — To Sir, With Love
The Introduction The first of three films in which Sidney Poitier starred in 1967, To Sir, With Love is a modest, workaday film that quickly withdrew before the trumpeted ambitions of In […]
Uh … 3 ½? — Young Adult
The Introduction Around the beginning of this decade, there were a few young American filmmakers whom I followed with great interest. One of them was Jason Reitman, whose Juno and Up in […]
My Favorite Movies: The Princess Bride
This movie’s entrée into the world preceded my own by about two months (the U.S. premiere happened 28 years ago today). But since it didn’t really hit its stride as […]
My Favorite Movies: Back to the Future
Cinema: The Art of Time. From the very beginning, before the grammar of visual storytelling had been codified, before anyone even tried to tell a complete story on film, the […]
Uh … 3 ½? — Napoleon Dynamite
The Introduction I didn’t see this movie from start to finish until March 2008, on a Netflix DVD. At the time, that felt like a major oversight. Jon Heder’s Napoleon […]
Double Feature: School Days
Each film begins with a speech — a declaration of intent right from the top. This is not as preachy or boring as it sounds, though. First of all, one […]
Double Feature: Carrie and Matilda
I’ll never know what it’s like to grow up as a girl. That’s what movies are for, right? To give us a clue what it’s like to be someone else. […]
Geppetto's Clocks 