Inside Out (2015) – Pete Docter

Pixar has been stuck in a rut for quite some time. Since Up in 2009, Pixar has churned out three sequels and only one new, original work. Toy Story 3 is a treasure but it is still one of the most overrated films in Pixar’s oeuvre. Can you honestly tell me the themes in Toy […]

Mad Men (2015) – Season 7 “Person to Person”

The series finale of Mad Men didn’t end with a bang; it ended with a serene “Om” as Don Draper, in a seated yoga pose, reaches a new plateau of enlightenment. Of course, Matthew Weiner is too smart and too wise to bookend the series with such a saccharine ending. Instead, it is suggested that Don […]

Mad Men (2015) – Season 7 “The Milk and Honey Route”

In the ending of Douglas Sirk’s 1959 masterpiece Imitation of Life, the character Annie Johnson uses her entire life savings for her grandiose funeral. Although Annie has endured many ordeals as an African-American woman, and wears the shroud of a typical mammy stereotype, her funeral is in many ways her only and final attempt at exercising […]

Mad Men (2015) – Season 7 “Lost Horizon”

With all the theories out there about how Matthew Weiner’s going to end the series, from Don jumping off a building like in the opening credits to Don actually being the notorious D.B. Cooper, little did we know that Weiner has already been planting seeds about Don’s fate since the first season. After Don spurns […]

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) – Joss Whedon

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a much bigger and more convoluted mess than the first Avengers movie. Yet, I still preferred the sequel because it wasn’t saccharine and safe like the first movie. Avengers lacked flair and, quite honestly, it just wasn’t very cinematic. Joss Whedon’s style, which developed in television, didn’t seem right for the silver screen […]

Mad Men (2015) – Season 7 “Time & Life”

It isn’t serendipitous that Jared Harris directed “Time & Life,” the latest episode of Mad Men. As you may already know, Harris played Lane Pryce from Season 3 to Season 5, the warm charismatic foreigner who falls in love with New York City and ultimately commits suicide. The moment Pryce finally entered into Mad Men’s family (as […]

Mad Men (2015) – Season 7 “The Forecast”

Warning: The following review contains spoilers! In last week’s unfairly lambasted episode of Mad Men “New Business”, Don settled his divorce with Megan by writing her a check for a million dollars. He’s no stranger to solving problems with a check and a ballpoint pen but this time felt different. After Megan shrewdly tells him […]

Mad Men (2015) – Season 7 “Severance”

Warning: The following review contains spoilers! The second half of the final season of Mad Men has been billed as “The End of an Era.” The show’s eight year run and the end of the 1960s certainly feels like the times (they) are a-changin’. Throughout the first half of season seven, Don Draper was knocked […]

Maps to the Stars (2014) – David Cronenberg

If you read the synopsis of David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars, you might scoff at the notion of Hollywood making another movie about Hollywood. After all, in the last five years, three of the five winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture went to films where the entertainment industry anchors the narrative. While […]

To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) – Kendrick Lamar

Instead of reviewing a film, I am branching out this week to review Kendrick Lamar’s new album To Pimp A Butterfly, which in many ways is just as narratively complex and wildly visual as some of the greatest films out there. TPAB is Kendrick’s second album from a major record label and not only does he […]