Month: July 2019

Movie review: “Crawl” (2019)

Posted on by Eric

“Banging on the pipes lures their senses. I can distract them for you.”

Though couched as more of a “man versus nature” movie, Alexandre Aja’s Crawl is the very definition of horror for me personally, and presents the most comprehensive and compelling case I’ve yet seen on screen for why you should never, under any circumstances, move to Florida, or, outside of a week spent at Disney with the kids, maybe, or exploring Tampa’s aggressively potent bar scene with the grown-ups, stay there. Beyond the blood-sucking insects and will-sapping humidity, beyond all the stupid but reliably hilarious stories that flow out of that state hourly from the pages of clickbait news sites and supermarket tabloids like flood waters overspilling a dike – getting one half of the “human interest” equation right, at least – Florida is best known for two things. Sunshine and sand, you offer? Gators and hurricanes, I’d counter*. Continue reading “Movie review: “Crawl” (2019)” →

Movie review: “Before Sunrise” (1995)

Posted on by Eric

“This friend of mine, he had a kid, and it was a home birth, so he was there, helping out and everything. But he said that, at that profound moment of birth…uh, he’s watching his child experiencing life for the first time, trying to take his first breath, and all he could think about was he was looking at something that was going to die some day. He just couldn’t get it out of his head. And I think that is so true, you know? Everything is so finite. But don’t you think that’s what makes, um, our time and specific moments so important?”

I’m going to break sharply with structural decorum and implied spoiler policy in my discussion of Richard Linklater’s once in my lifetime Before Sunrise – because this is, in spite of what the title might suggest, a discussion rather than a review – by beginning at its end. If you are a first time viewer who, unlike me, believes that such spoilers might, indeed, ruin their appreciation of what is the most breathlessly authentic screen romance I have seen in my lifetime of attempts, please read no further and, instead, reinvest whatever time you might’ve spent otherwise occupied finding the most painless way possible to stream the movie immediately. I won’t take it personally. Continue reading “Movie review: “Before Sunrise” (1995)” →

Road Postcard #1 (6/30/19) – DMB in Indy

Posted on by Eric

Road Postcards are a (hopefully) recurring series of random thoughts, details, and anecdotes from a recent road trip, most likely to see a concert. They are shorter (if not necessarily short), looser, and less fussed over than a typical DAE post/review. Some days it’s hard to tell whether I write in order to justify staying busy with events and such, or whether I frequent movies and concerts in part to have something to write about. Thankfully, there is no day on which the distinction particularly matters.

Continue reading “Road Postcard #1 (6/30/19) – DMB in Indy” →