A thrillingly different Eastern European film, this one from Romania with lots of blah shots of Bucharest and other social commentary. In Part 1 we meet the teacher, whose porn selfie with her husband has gotten loose on the Internet, as she wanders the streets, like Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. Part 2 I didn’t get, […]
A sweet, rather predictable tale of a cynical and lazy city teacher who is assigned to “the most remote school in the world” and discovers teaching, and himself. It was lovely to see the ghos and the landscapes of Bhutan, and it brought back memories of my year in Libya with the Peace Corps; but […]
Eight thousand years from now, with all the technological advances, they still fight like the Norman Conquest, or maybe the siege of Troy? Absurdity piles on absurdity, so much that we might as well be watching a comic book. If the .0001 per cent of the population that hasn’t been reduced to drone ant level […]
An unabashedly over-the-top depiction of the Gucci family saga, with megawatt performances by Lady Gaga, Jared Leto, Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons–the whole family except Adam Driver, a hole in the middle, who acted mainly by changing his hairstyle. There’s no point in quibbling over the plot, because it was a true story. If you […]
Directorially brilliant, Todd Haynes’s portrait of the seminal punk rock group packs the wallop of the Velvets’ best music. He mixes archival footage from the era with wonderful modern interviews, all the while explaining how their songs came to be and, best of all, how they sounded. Like many, I knew three or four of […]
Not a major Almodovar, but any story he chooses to tell is worth watching, and every minute spent with Penelope Cruz is a pleasure. The story of the two mothers and their babies is gripping, seemingly enough in itself for a film. The story of Franco’s victims is also moving, but what does one story […]
A thriller recounting the exploits of…a Swiss private banker, who is eager, if not desperate, not to lose his accounts. The most interesting character is his predecessor, who is mentioned by everyone but does not appear in the film. Cigarette smoking is the closest things come to action. As a portrait of the Buenos Aires […]
Before being influenced by Academy voters, here are my favorites for Oscars this year. An updated post will appear once the nominations are out and maybe after I’ve seen a couple more of the designated films. Best Picture Drive My Car Belfast A Hero I’m Your Man Hand of God Power of the Dog The […]
Three short films consisting entirely of extended conversations, a Japanese My Dinner with Andre or, more exactly, Drive My Car without action. I have never seen a movie that would translate so seamlessly to the stage yet felt authentically cinematic. The actors fully inhabited their roles, although as they were Japanese it’s hard for me to judge. […]
I realize that smoking was more common in 1941, but why did Guillermo del Toro put cigarettes in almost every scene of this movie? It’s unneeded as an acting crutch, and it diverts the viewer’s (or at least my) focus from the story: what must his breath smell like when he kisses her?, I wonder […]
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