Zatoichi
We non-Japanese probably can't fully understand what it means for Takeshi Kitano to make a Zatoichi movie. Here's the best comparison I can come up with: Imagine if Sean Connery had starred in all the James Bond films, and then years after the series ended, Clint Eastwood decided to portray 007 himself in his own Bond flick. The "official" Zatoichi… read more!
Zero Dark Thirty
Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal are the brains behind 2008's The Hurt Locker, an incredibly suspenseful microcosmic look at the War on Terror that won the two filmmakers – and the film itself – Oscars. Their follow-up, Zero Dark Thirty, an exhaustive, journalistic drama about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, shows this same war in macrocosm. From… read more!
Zodiac
Originally I was going to write this review under the assumption that everybody knew the basic details of San Francisco's legendary Zodiac Killer: how many murders he's connected with, how long his killing spree lasted, and whether he was ever identified or caught. But my wife informed me, after we saw Zodiac, that she knew none of this going into… read more!
Zola
In 2015, A'Ziah "Zola" King, then a 20-year-old stripper from Detroit, got on Twitter and tapped out a 148-tweet account of a wild few days she had just spent with a fellow stripper named Jessica Swiatkowski down in Florida. The story – a blend of facts, King's perception of the facts, and outright fabrications – became a viral sensation, leading… read more!
Zoolander
[Note: I wrote this review while employed at Paramount Pictures.] Lately security has been very tight at my place of employment, so it almost seemed like they were not going to provide their routine free screening of Paramount films for employees. But 10 days after Zoolander's release, they decided to slip one in for those interested. I figured it was… read more!