Screening Room
March 29, 2009
God Save the Kings! 1
by Emily Colette Wilkinson
For fans of Deadwood, the mere name Ian McShane might be enough to tempt you to watch Kings, NBC’s new midseason drama (Sundays 8pm Eastern). But that’s hardly where the attractions end. The show is visually stylish, reminiscent of the 90s Ethan Hawke Hamlet and of Julie Taymor’s Titus Andronicus in that it offers a [...]
March 2, 2009
The Wire’s Simon Back on the Beat in Baltimore 0
by C. Max Magee
The Wire’s David Simon is a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun and famously wielded his journalistic eye as creator of the critically acclaimed series. Though he officially turned in his reporter’s notebook years ago, Simon was moved to do a little freelance reporting for the Washington Post in reaction to a frustrating lack of [...]
February 20, 2009
The Revolution That Can’t Be Televised: On Revolutionary Road 4
by Garth Risk Hallberg
After a weak year for movies, this Sunday’s Academy Awards promises more than the usual number of surprises. Will we watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button rack up 13 Oscars, eclipsing Ben-Hur… or will we watch it edge out The Color Purple for a dubious record: most nominations without a single award? Will we [...]
October 27, 2008
“Poor Robin Crusoe” 2
by Emily Colette Wilkinson
Somewhere in the middle of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, the eponymous hero, by now several years cast away by himself on a deserted island, is startled awake by the sound a voice other than his own: “Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe, poor Robin Crusoe, where are you [...]
August 12, 2008
“Why So Serious?” Batman and the Intellectuals 8
by Emily Colette Wilkinson
Reading Nikil Saval (my Stanford friend and colleague)’s review of The Dark Knight at n+1 today, I found myself of two minds about his take. I too had exclaimed angrily about the impossible bustiness of the whole troupe of Russian ballerinas Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) kidnaps on his yacht, and the befuddling reappearance of Cillian [...]
July 11, 2008
May-December (In July) 3
by Emily Colette Wilkinson
In 1699, at the age of 32, Jonathan Swift wrote a list of resolutions for himself that he titled “When I come to be old.” The first of these was, “Not to marry a young Woman.” Improbably, reading this Swiftian direction set me compiling a list of movies in which men and women disregard his [...]
