I guess I take it for granted that Tim Burton and Rivers Cuomo are best friends. I mean, technically I’m not sure if they’ve ever even met. But the pairing makes perfect sense. Just imagine: Big Eyes auteur Burton and...
directed by Joel and Ethan Coen Joel & Ethan Coen had already established themselves as formidable neo-noir plot wranglers and ace visual stylists with dour debut Blood Simple, but it was Raising Arizona that finally announced the brothers as comic...
directed by Terry Jones Monty Python’s Life of Brian (officially helmed by Terry Jones) is an ambitious, problematic, and hilarious deconstruction of the Christian creation myth. The high-wire act is staggering: here’s a film that goes out of its way to...
Like lots of cultural icons who die before their time, painter Jean-Michel Basquiat endures in popular imagination not just because of what he achieved, but because he embodies our idea of a very particular time and place—specifically the shabby-chic bohemianism...
The Internet’s Own Boy is an illuminating documentary about the life and tragic death of web activist Aaron Swartz—who, facing lengthy jail time for his hacktivist activities, committed suicide in January of 2013 at age 26.
I know there are a lot of sensitive souls out there in the Battleship Pretension readership. So if you’re easily upset by extreme descriptions of hippie-on-hippie violence, please consider this your trigger warning. You will not escape this review without...
James Franco. Gay sex. Penis. At least Interior. Leather Bar. makes SEO easy. But if there’s one thing directors Franco and Travis Mathews make easy when discussing their new, multi-layered art-project-cum-documentary-cum-video-essay, it’s every other thing. So hang it there, readers—I...
This list was compiled from the individual top ten lists of Scott, Josh, Aaron, Rita, Matt, Craig, Sarah, Mat, Tyler, and David. Honorable Mentions: Spring Breakers, The World’s End, Much Ado About Nothing, You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, The Hobbit:...
Horror movies can be judged by a pretty ruthless metric. Was that shit scary? If so, pass; if not, fail. Forget Rotten Tomatoes—horror is only certified fresh if the inside of your Joe Boxers are 51% coated in feces from...