In our daily lives, the main function of a car is to get us from point A to point B. But in the world of cinema, cars have come to represent far more than just transportation. In his newest video essay, Thomas Flight examines how cars on film can be used to communicate certain character traits, provide safe or…
Richard Linklater’s autobiographical 2014 film Boyhood drew critical praise for following a young actor (Ellar Coltrane) for a number of years as he progressed from childhood to adolescence and onto young adulthood. But the Warner Bros. Harry Potter film franchise, based on the novels by J.K. Rowling, basically did…
Last week there was a great disturbance in the cinephile force. The BBC tasked 177 critics from 36 countries to put together the top 100 films of the 21st century (so far). The list has caused quite a bit of conversation and some controversy over what was included and excluded and the overall rankings of the films.…
If there’s one thing that pop culture obsessives love doing, it’s making lists. If there’s another thing they love doing, it’s dissecting and arguing about a list made by another pop culture obsessive. What was included? What was overlooked? What ranked way too high and what should’ve ranked higher? These are the…
It comes as no surprise that there are certain patterns in filmmaking, templates that studios follow almost like a checklist to entertain audiences by hitting familiar beats. This same cookie-cutter approach carries over not just from the major blockbusters but also to their marketing materials. Movie trailers have…
For over a century, audiences have been enthralled by the flickering images projected onto cinema screens. Since the beginning of film, viewers have witnessed iconic imagery that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. These are shots composed in such interesting ways as to tell a story themselves, or use…
It took Richard Linklater two hours and 46 minutes to tell the (slightly fictionalized) story of his own, tumultuous, peripatetic youth in 2014’s Boyhood. Filmmaker Malcolm Rizzuto accomplishes the same thing in just seven and a half minutes with Fat Pants, and Rizzuto’s version comes complete with trippy animation…
One of the time honored rituals of the American fast food experience is dropping a nickel or quarter into the colorful counter-top coin game at Taco Bell in hopes of scoring a free soft or hard shell taco. Most people think of this diversion as a harmless way to kill a few seconds while waiting for their food. The…
After years of promising a “spiritual sequel” to his breakout film Dazed And Confused (and Boyhood, while he’s at it), Richard Linklater is finally ready to deliver. The director’s latest movie, now retitled from That’s What I’m Talking About to the barely less verbose Everybody Wants Some, will be the opening film at…
Just over a year after Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age story, Boyhood, charmingly ambled its way into theaters, a showrunner for The Simpsons announced that the show would be devoting its Christmas episode this year to spoofing the director’s Oscar-nominated film. Al Jean, who’s been running Fox’s long-running…
Going in, we knew that this list—totaled up from ballots submitted by 11 A.V. Club staff members and contributors—would be eclectic, with plenty of dark horses sneaking up toward the front. Still, we were genuinely surprised at what ended up at the top of the list. Close to 300 films received votes, and not one of the…
This week’s question comes from reader Marco Klaue:
In Scenic Routes, Mike D’Angelo looks at key movie scenes, explaining how they work and what they mean.
Richard Linklater has said that his follow-up to Boyhood, That’s What I’m Talking About, will be a “spiritual sequel” to his Oscar nominated coming-of-age saga that will focus on a crop of characters new to the college scene. But because life doesn’t stop being beautifully complex when you graduate from high school,…
Ain’t Hollywood grand? Not the actual neighborhood or whatever, obviously, but the idea of Hollywood as shorthand for America’s film industry. It has glitz! It has glamour! It probably has a third thing! The best part of Hollywood, though, is that it’s not afraid to put everything aside and just celebrate itself for a…
While we at The A.V. Club can only discuss the Oscar race, make predictions, and complain about snubs, The Hollywood Reporter is running a new series of “brutally honest” interviews with the people who actually pick the Oscar winners. So far two interviews have been released, and under the protection of anonymity…
In the grand spirit of TV Roundtable and Music Roundtable, welcome to the creatively titled Film Roundtable, where A.V. Club writers discuss movies old and new, or sound off on topics related to cinema. In this inaugural installment, we preview Sunday’s Academy Awards.
While there is ample ammo for people who decry the Academy Awards for snubbing certain films and filmmakers this year, it’s still hard to argue against those who were included in the Best Director category. While Ava DuVernay and others were unfairly shut out, the five nominees that actually got the nod have proven…
Fresh off a Golden Globe win and multiple Oscar nominations, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is the talk of the town. But as this faux trailer shows, clearly Linklater was just cribbing off another story of a boy growing up and trying to make sense of the world around him. Yes, Cory Matthews grew up before America’s eyes…
Animation fans, prepare your best “everything is not awesome” tweet. An audible gasp could be heard at this morning’s crack-of-dawn Academy Awards press conference in Los Angeles, when new Star Wars maestro J.J. Abrams and Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón announced that the widely beloved The Lego Movie would not be…
