Brave Grassroots Lincoln (Weekly Links)

“…Shall not perish from the Earth. Now watch me while I hit this drive.”

Links to reviews I wrote for the Herald and etc.

Brave. “Skillful.”

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. “Some clever ideas running around here, albeit in terrible taste.”

Grassroots. “The siren call of a quixotic quest.”

Lost Bohemia. “What good is history if you can’t make money from it?”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Steve Scher about actors who take certain roles as career corrections, bids to get back in audience favor, a la Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages. The piece is archived here; the movie widget begins at the 20:20 mark.

Catching up with a few What a Feeling! entries, we find vintage Eighties reviews of Jeannot Szwarc’s Supergirl, J. Lee Thompson’s Charles Bronson vehicle The Evil That Men Do, and Luc Besson’s Subway.

R.I.P. Andrew Sarris, without whom writing about movies would look very different. More to come. Update: Film Comment magazine has added some online reminscences, including my memory of Sarris’s visit to Seattle to deliver a very memorable lecture in March 1987. The pieces are here, and feature Kent Jones, Glenn Kenny, Geoffrey O’Brien, and Phillip Lopate (and might add more).