Burn After Reading, After Pizza

American Film Comedy
We had our Pizza Party this week. The entertainment was that everyone told jokes. Lots of fun!!! Then we watched Burn After Reading, a hilarious Coen brothers film with a nearly all-star cast (George Clooney, Brad Pitt [sooo funny!], John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons [also sooo funny!], Richard Jenkins), that was criminally underrated when it opened, possibly because it came out just after the Coens' Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men (which, BTW, I didn't love). The class reaction to Burn was amazing. It started slow, with just the occasional titter, and then built until, by the end, the class was reacting loudly to everything. There are a lot of ways to talk about this film. I'm going to try a character-oriented approach next week and see what happens.

Art Film

Cinema Criticism Writing
Dangerous Liaisons, which we watched in class this week, is one of those movies that has what can pretty fairly be called an all-star cast: Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman, Keanu Reeves and Swoosie Kurtz. Some of them are bigger stars now than they were in 1988, when the movie opened; some perhaps not quite so big. And yet it's still a bit surprising to see them all assembled in one movie, especially a costume picture set in 18th century France. It's a little like going to an art museum and spotting movie-star faces in a painting by Watteau.