Chuck Bowen
Slant
Contact Chuck
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Chuck:
'Turn Every Page' Review: Celebrating the Editor-Writer Bond
'Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb' is a celebration of a profound, dying privilege. → Read More
Deep Water Review: Adrian Lyne’s Erotic Thriller Goes Off the Deep End
After a dangerous, even personal, first half, Deep Water becomes crude in all the wrong ways. → Read More
Review: The Little Things Is Essentially a David Fincher Tribute Reel
Though it feels impersonal, The Little Things nevertheless has an obsessive pull. → Read More
Through the Years: Madonna’s Iconic “Vogue” Turns 30
From MTV to Madame X, the queen of pop's ode to voguing continues to endure three decades later. → Read More
State Like Sleep Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Writer-director Meredith Danluck pulls a canny but superficial trick with State Like Sleep, refusing to commit her film to any singular genre as a signifier of her heroine’s own detachment. Danluck is committed to Katherine’s (Katherine Waterston) aimless floating, following the latter as she sorts out the mess that’s left in the wake of the possible murder of her celebrity husband, Stefan… → Read More
Genesis 2.0 Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Christian Frei’s Genesis 2.0 abounds in potentially fascinating subject matter, which the filmmaker rushes through with the haphazard eagerness of a student who’s trying to finish an exam in time. Almost entirely composed of exposition, the documentary feels as if it’s constantly starting all over again, hopping from one undigested high concept to another. Its central conceit, which contrasts… → Read More
Vice | 2018 Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Writer-director Adam McKay peppers Vice‘s story of political corruption with surreal flourishes that recall the filmmaker’s collaborations with Will Ferrell. The idea is promising, as routine jokes like the ones found in a slob comedy such as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby can feel shocking when applied to material that’s usually treated with a numbingly straight and Oscar-courting… → Read More
Vice | 2018 Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Writer-director Adam McKay peppers Vice‘s story of political corruption with surreal flourishes that recall the filmmaker’s collaborations with Will Ferrell. The idea is promising, as routine jokes like the ones found in a slob comedy such as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby can feel shocking when applied to material that’s usually treated with a numbingly straight and Oscar-courting… → Read More
Papillon Film Review by Chuck Bowen
To contrast Franklin J. Schaffner's 1973 Papillon with its remake is to underscore certain differences between commercial films of two distinct generations. The original is the sort of pungent prison drama that could have only been made in America in the late 1960s or '70s, as it evinces a grasp of detail and cruelty that's almost entirely absent in contemporary mainstream cinema. Michael Noer's… → Read More
Roxanne Roxanne Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Michael Larnell's Roxanne Roxanne obliquely concerns the so-called “Roxanne Wars,” an epic rap battle that was kicked off by a teenage girl who recorded a furious response to UTFO's “Roxanne, Roxanne,” a dismissal of a woman for rejecting the group's advances. Captured in one take on a whim, Roxanne Shanté's song was a surprising bestseller, spurning dozens of other “response” singles in the… → Read More
Roseanne: Season 10
The original Roseanne is one of the titans of sitcom television—a shrewd, piercing, and sometimes devastating glimpse at a Midwestern family always on the brink of financial collapse. And time has only made the show more remarkable. It's difficult to find a contemporary series, other than the occasional urban crime drama, in which the actors actually resemble people who might live on cheap… → Read More
Flower Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Erica (Zoey Deutch), the 17-year-old protagonist of Flower, speaks in an elaborate and ostentatiously profane manner that distinguishes her as a graduate of the Diablo Cody Institute for Preternaturally Smug Adolescents, while scarfing down junk food and cheap beer and waxing nostalgic for music that existed long before she was born. Clad in tank tops and clingy shorts, she's another carefully… → Read More
Claire’s Camera Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Hong Sang-soo's Claire's Camera is set during the Cannes Film Festival, where it was shot in 2016. Apart from the dialogue, one might not be able to tell that this narrative is set against the most famous film festival in the world. Hong's Cannes is a nearly unpopulated European beach town, in which characters have room and time to wander and contemplate. We see no movie stars or paparazzi, and… → Read More
Mohawk Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Ted Geoghegan's Mohawk, a survival-of-the-fittest film that's charged with a thunderous urgency, is set in New York shortly after the War of 1812, which fractured the already imperiled safety of Native American tribes, who are torn in their allegiances between the Americans and the British. Calvin Two Rivers (Justin Rain) believes that the Mohawk should align themselves with the British and… → Read More
Atlanta: Robbin’ Season
When we last saw Earn (Donald Glover), he was sleeping in a storage unit alongside remnants of his life at Princeton University. He was holding a few hundred dollars, which could've been interpreted as a symbol of hope and direction. Perhaps Earn could actually manage the blossoming rap career of his cousin, Alfred (Bryan Tyree Henry), a.k.a. Paper Boi. But such a read of Atlanta's season-one… → Read More
Loveless | 2017 Film Review by Chuck Bowen
With one slip, Andrey Zvyagintsev's films could devolve into cartoons of Russian miserabilism, as they walk a precarious tonal boundary separating existential poetry from political harangue. And the films largely benefit from this tension. His symmetrical images, elaborate tracking shots, and extended punctuations of silence bring to mind the work of acclaimed European filmmakers such as Michael… → Read More
Here and Now: Season One
Alan Ball's Here and Now is a deposition on America in the Trump Age, composed almost entirely of scenes that function as dramatizations of liberal op-ed pieces. Ball is understandably so enraged with the direction this country is taking that his emotions have seemingly blocked the perception and humor that he and his collaborators evinced in the best portions of Six Feet Under. Ball wants to… → Read More
Interview: Larry Fessenden Talks Like Me, Online Culture, & Horror
This man of many hats riffed on male anxiety, the lasting appeal of the horror genre, and more. → Read More
Mosaic TV Review by Chuck Bowen
Mosaic suggests a mammoth world that exists beyond Steven Soderbergh's rigorously structured narrative. → Read More
Phantom Thread Film Review by Chuck Bowen
Phantom Thread arrives at a place of qualified peace that cauterizes the emotional wounds of Paul Thomas Anderson’s cinema. → Read More