HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELLA!

Kelley Blog Posts

Okay, I know this isn’t strictly movie-related, but in honor of the late, great Ella Fitzgerald’s would-be 98th birthday today, I felt a post was warranted anyway. I enjoy most kinds of music, but at the end of the day my heart belongs to the jazz and “easy listening” tunes from the 1940s-1960s. It’s just hard to top those beautiful old standards penned by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and the other fantastic composers of the Great American Songbook. While many artists recorded their own versions of these songs, my favorite artist from this period will always be Ella Fitzgerald. Her career spanned an incredible SIXTY YEARS. And I …

Ex Machina

Charles Blog Posts, Reviews, SXSW

As I watched this movie, one thought kept occurring to me: This is what A.I. might have looked like had Stanley Kubrick directed it himself. Despite my feelings toward both Kubrick and to Spielberg’s flawed version of A.I., I knew this thought wasn’t a bad thing, or at least I wasn’t associating it with a criticism of Ex Machina. And it certainly wasn’t a knock against Alex Garland, who makes his directorial debut here. No, in fact, it was quite the opposite. This is a film that deals with artificial intelligence in a realistic and frank manner that is rarely seen onscreen. It’s not an action movie about cybernetic machines …

Furious 7

Charles Blog Posts, Reviews, SXSW Leave a Comment

When I found out there was going to be a super secret surprise midnight screening of Furious 7 at The Paramount Theater during SXSW, I completely changed my movie watching plans for that day and made sure that I got a great spot in line. I ended up with a fantastic seat in one of the coolest theaters in Austin (although, my heart will always be with Alamo Drafthouse, but I digress). Anyway, I mention all of this because I’m sure it will taint my view of this film. It’s hard to separate a great experience from a film, and boy, was this a great experience. First, producer Neal Moritz …