Steven Boone is a native New Yorker whose film criticism and articles have been published in The Star-Ledger, The Village Voice, Time Out NY, RES and Show Business Weekly. He contributes to the blogs The House Next Door, Vinyl is Heavy and his neglected but beloved pet project, Big Media Vandalism. He is proudest of coining a term for post-1966 corporate Hollywood: Ho'wood.
In the 1996 book Jihad vs. McWorld, political science braniac Benjamin Barber coined the term “infotainment telesector” to describe the conglomerates controlling print journalism, television, music, film and advertising. He could have just said, “the media,” but noooo. Infotainment telesector sounds like something from ’50s sci-fi, but its weird, metallic ring is just about right [...]
Steven Boone on how and why the BALLAST haters are missing the message behind Lance Hammer’s methods.
At various turns, “Abraham Lincoln” (1930), D.W. Griffith’s first and most notorious sound film, comes off as the legendary director’s own “W.” — the story of a simple, silly good ole boy’s rise to the U.S. Presidency.
Steven Boone contemplates BALLAST … while VANTAGE POINT blares from the next bunk.
With the MPAA cracking down again on non-profit media duplication, Steven Boone gets ready to turn himself in.
The next four months are to be the most intensely self-conscious, galvanizing, awkward, crazed, humiliating, uplifting, maudlin and surreal period in American racial history. A black man will or will not be chosen as the next President of the United States. My fingers tremble as I type this. As a black-and-white racial spectacle, this is [...]
Steven Boone looks at our current socio-economic catastrophe in movie terms.
Steven Boone considers Paul Krik’s ABLE DANGER, a repackaging of 9/11 conspiracy theory for Anna Karina fetishists.
Steven Boone redefines the relationship between the critic and the audience, using metaphors that would be right up James Agee’s alley.
A short film set in a halfway house. Our hero, Steven Boone, traverses the odds to hear Obama’s historic acceptance speech for his party’s nomination.
“Yo, Steve, you got any movies, my dude?”
One of the youngbloods, a relatively new arrival here at the halfway house, is standing by my bunk with a look of desperation. It’s Sunday afternoon and he’s too broke to do anything but languish in here with us old timers. I slide my pile of Brooklyn Public [...]
I wish I had smuggled the Polaroid snapshot of Nolte from my former employer, a men’s homeless shelter. Nolte wasn’t his real name, but I’ll be damned if the scruffy, gin-blossomed, gravel-voiced Vietnam veteran wasn’t a ringer for Nick Nolte playing a Nam burnout. He wore mirror shades and ratty field jacket festooned with medals [...]
Will Michael Mann direct, with Jamie Foxx as Jesse Jackson? Or will Robert Zemeckis shoot the whole thing green screen? Steven Boone imagines what the inevitable Obama biopic will look like.
Steven Boone reports from China, where the third MUMMY movie is working diplomatic magic.
Steven Boone explains why WALL-E qualifies as “another brilliant and devastating visual statement on American life dulled and softened by an overbearing orchestral score that says, ‘It’s only a movie, y’all…’”
Kevin Buist
FLAME + CITRON Review
Christopher Campbell
Happy Halloween Links. Today in Film...
Brandon Harris
5 80s Literary Adaptations Worse Than...
Kevin Kelly
John Krasinski, Brief Interviews With...
Karina Longworth
SpoutBlog, Now Available in Book Form
Paul Moore
October 31, Karina’s Last Day
Lauren Wissot
Sasha Grey Interview
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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