It's Been a Year...

Yep -- It's been a year since I've started sharing my unorganized, rambling thoughts on movies with this-here blog thingy. I've gone through three incarnations, finally settling on my man Hugo Stiglitz as the name I want associated with my film musings. I've also gotten a chance to write a lot about books, music, and share random thoughts on philosophy and religion (which I've moved to my other blog), and I feel pretty darn lucky to have a forum that I can just jot my crude, mostly unedited thoughts...

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Film Snapshot: Wendy and Lucy

With the minimalist components of a Dardenne Brothers film, Kelly Reichardt's latest film Wendy and Lucy is a lovely, poignant tale about humanity. It's apt that a film shot on location in Portland, OR (yay Oregon!) should also be compared to something like a Raymond Carver short story; minimal effects that have big emotional payoffs. It's not just the emotional pay offs that make this story rewarding (they're subtle, but they're there), but in how the film makes you think and feel and contemplate...

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Film Snapshots: The Edge of Heaven, Revolutionary Road, Let the Right One In

Yup -- still haven't posted that 2008 year-end list, yet....but I swear it's coming. I'm just going to admit defeat on a few films and wait to see them when they are released on DVD. As for now, here are three films I recently saw:The Edge of HeavenIt's impossible for me to champion this film enough, but thanks have to go to my friend Brandon for making me aware of this beautiful, poignant film. Certainly one of the best films of 2008. It’s so much more fulfilling than the slew of hyper-link...

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Kevin's 10 Most Desirable Film Adaptations

I was looking at some of books today, and started thinking about how there are thousands of great novels yet to be made into movies. Names like Rushdie, Amis, McEwan, and Coetzee really haven't had their best work translated to celluloid, just their most accessible. I'm still holding out hope that the failed (and altogether scraped) Cronenberg adaptation of Martin Amis' hilarious and brilliant London Fields will come to fruition. It was then that I realized once upon a time I started a list of...

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Grading 2008: Reflections on Movies I've Seen, and Why the Hell Did I Watch "Vantage Point"?

Above is a quick glimpse of the checklist of movies I kept this year. Obviously non-graded movies have yet to be seen. 29 isn't all that bad considering there was a stretch of about three months of no movie watching whatsoever. click the picture to enlarge it....sorry that's as big as I could get it. Some interesting things of note:- In Bruges is far and away the most surprising film experience I had all year. I really was expecting that thing to suck. Boy I love being wrong sometimes.- There...

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Film Snapshots: Redbelt, The Wrestler, Shotgun Stories

I've knocked three more films off my year-end to-do list (all three were wonderful movie experiences), but sadly I just don't have the time to give them proper full length reviews. I'll make sure I give the good ones justice in my 2008 best of list at the end of this month. Next on the list I'm going all foreign with the following films: The Edge of Heaven, Tell No One, and Let the Right One In. Onto the movies!RedbeltDavid Mamet's most simplistic con to date; which is not to say the film is simplistic...

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