http://www.themillions.com Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:52:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Several years ago a friend of a friend of mine received free tickets to a new production of The Taming of The Shrew in Washington D.C. and made the unfortunate decision of bringing me along. I grew dismayed as the play progressed, believing that it was perhaps impossible to try ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/03/tiny-and-strange-reinterpreting-alice.html The Oscars, for as long as I can remember watching them, have been a tangle of thorns. The bramble invariably bears fruit, but the berries are often difficult to reach, or worse yet, unripe. Last year’s Slumdog Millionaire was not the worst movie to win Best Picture—let us not forget ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/03/the-best-picture-wins-best-picture.html In both the original and the American remake of Funny Games, Michael Haneke, always the gracious host, invites us to the theater for what has become known as torture porn, only to scold us for showing up, for enjoying ourselves, and for eating all the popcorn. The film, in which ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/03/the-audience-the-accused-michael-hanekes-the-white-ribbon.html We at The Millions appreciate good criticism for its own sake, whether it be about The Paris Review or soccer commentators, Orhan Pamuk or Beyonce Knowles.  In that spirit, we present this dialogue--inspired in part by Slate's TV Club--about one of this season's most fascinating television shows, The Bachelor: On ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/03/happily-ever-after-husband-and-wife-discuss-the-bachelor.html With the Oscars just around the corner, here's a wonderfully curious memoir of a father, his son, and their shared love of film. A few years ago, Canadian novelist and occasional CBC arts commentator David Gilmour was faced with a family crisis. His teenage son Jesse was struggling with school and ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/02/father-son-and-silver-screen-david-gilmours-the-film-club.html “What is a cat but a reduced lion?”  So muses the fictionalized Joseph Brodsky character in Andrey Khrzhanovsky’s whimsical and inventive film, A Room and a Half.  The film is a mesh of genres – bio-documentary, animated fairy tale, imagined fiction, non-fictional re-enactment; in other words, a distinctly contemporary approach ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/brodskys-cat-andrey-khrzhanovsky%e2%80%99s-a-room-and-a-half.html The opening scene of Vertigo is one of the most spectacular in film: across a series of San Francisco rooftops, the city and bay glittering in the background, a cop and a detective chase a criminal—until the detective slips and the cop falls to his death. Hanging from a ledge ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/circular-dread-the-narrative-pleasures-of-damages.html I. In the 1990s, a scourge swept across the world of entertainment.  It threatened the livelihoods of those in the creative industry and presented a world where the average person, dwelling in obscurity, could be plucked from the masses and made a star.  It was equal parts thrilling and horrifying.  No, ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/nobody-wants-to-go-home-a-unified-theory-of-reality-tv.html The Swedish-language film adaption of Stieg Larsson's worldwide bestseller The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo should be out on this side of the pond in the next few months, but Sony has also recently optioned rights for an American version.  MTV's blog speculates on American actresses who might get a ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/the-girl-who-played-bestselling-literary-heroines.html James Cameron’s new movie Avatar is well on its way to becoming a global cultural phenomenon. The director’s latest mash-up of romance, action, and big-budget special effects has, like his previous film Titanic, drawn in record setting audiences across the globe. From New York to Shanghai, people have waited for ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/pandoras-box-avatar-sparks-debate-in-china.html