Crooked Scoreboard is a sports-and-culture website that is transitioning to an everything-and-culture website, with yours truly in charge of the movie section (mostly just editing for now; I plan to start writing more next month).
We’ve run some good stuff in 2017, ranging from the informative to the amusing, and I would be so sad if you missed out on it. So here’s a bunch of links, arranged by subject.
REVIEWS:
— “Collide” (Eric D. Snider)
— “A Cure for Wellness” (Eric D. Snider)
— “Fist Fight” (Jette Kernion)
— “Get Out” (Jette Kernion)
— “John Wick: Chapter 2” (Eric D. Snider)
— “The LEGO Batman Movie” (Dawn Taylor)
— “Patriots Day” (Jette Kernion)
— “Rings” (Eric D. Snider)
— “Silence” (Eric D. Snider)
— “The Space Between Us” (Jette Kernion)
— “xXx: Return of Xander Cage” (Dawn Taylor)
NOT REVIEWS BUT ABOUT SPECIFIC MOVIES:
— “Arrival,” and what it says about human nature. By Amber Emberwing.
— “Chasing Amy” on its 20th anniversary, by Craig J. Clark.
— “La La Land” and “Manchester by the Sea,” and their different but complementary uses of music. By Greg Mucci.
— “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” (1992). Jeremy Herbert reevaluates it on its 25th anniversary.
— “The Ninth Configuration” (1980). Christine Makepeace looks at how William Peter Blatty’s film (he’s the “Exorcist” guy, you know) handles mental illness.
— How the “Rocky” movies got me (not “me,” but Bill Bria) through a liver transplant!
— Harry Potter and the importance of accepting imperfection. Derek Faraci figured out what the Hogwarts story is really about: coming to terms with your heroes’ flaws.
— “Stop Making Sense” (1984) and “Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids” (2016), two very different concert films directed by Jonathan Demme, compared by William Mai.
— “Three O’Clock High” (1987), the best school fistfight movie, analyzed by Derek Faraci.
— “Unbreakable” (2000) — specifically, Kristen Lopez, who has the same condition (osteogenesis imperfecta) as Samuel L. Jackson’s character, watches it for the first time.
IN GENERAL:
— U.S. History in Film Part 1: 1492-1908. Derek Faraci guides us through history as told in the movies.
— Bloody Valentines: 14 violent movies that came out around Valentine’s Day, curated by Craig J. Clark.
— Jeff Bayer cried a lot at the movies in 2016.
— The art of product placement. Derek Faraci again, taking us through some good and bad examples.
— What political thrillers of the ’60s can tell us about today. Tom Lorenzo looks at “The Manchurian Candidate,” “The Intruder,” and “Seven Days in May.”
— Sorry: Movies are still better than TV. D.K. Holm explains why.
— The rise and fall of Ricky Gervais is discussed by Tom Bond in conjunction with Gervais’s new David Brent movie.
— This year’s Oscar films were about the American Dream, by Kristen Lopez.
— The sadness of audio commentary tracks, with specific fond remembrances by D.K. Holm.
JUST FOR LAFFS:
— 7 More Foreign Stories That Should Have Starred Matt Damon. In response to “The Great Wall,” Michael Smith inserts Good Will Hunting into a bunch of other movies.
— 10 Number-Titled Movies That Are Sexier Than the Fifty Shades Films, as determined by Rob Hunter.
— A memo from the Umbrella Corporation. Brian Salisbury tracked down this interoffice communication from the company behind the “Resident Evil” monsters.
— My (Eric D. Snider’s) Sundance diary, part 1 and part 2.
— Presidential movies, according to Amazon users. Jamie Flook found some amusing reviews of president-themed films.
— Your 2017 movie preview, by Eric D. Snider.
— What will happen in 2017-2025, according to movies set in those years. By Michael Smith.
— And Now a Word from President Travis Bickle. Bill Bria imagines Robert DeNiro’s “Taxi Driver” character as POTUS.
— “Underworld,” the whole series. Specifically: what is the deal with them? By Brian Salisbury.
— Will Smith’s bad choices: a fake oral history, by Jacob Oller.
