Half the humor and twice the budget of Ted, which we saw the same weekend. There are some artists you just don’t like – e.g., John Marin or Thomas Hart Benton – and Wes Anderson is one of those. His artistry is undeniable: he creates his alternate universe – this one is misleadingly labeled “1965” […]
The heartwarming love story of a boy and his teddy, the one who won’t grow up and the other mature beyond his species. Oh, and there’s also Mila Kunis as the woman who comes between them. The other character is Boston, the city of Dennis Lehane, the Afflecks and the Farrelly Brothers, with homages like […]
Un film francais “typique,” with sex and talk and sex and talk and then un peu de fantasie au fin. Was it extolling the liberating properties of prostitution or condemning the men who engage in it, as well as the men who don’t? Well, there didn’t seem to be a point. The one thing that […]
An ode to solipsism, made watchable by the pleasant looks of Greta Gerwig, the chastest onscreen slut I’ve seen in awhile, and the normal looks of Joel Kinnaman, whom we have watched and grown to love over the two years of AMC’s The Killing, in which he plays the scruffy and barely intelligible Holder. Otherwise, […]
While the situations tended to comedic extremes, the underlying relationships were touchingly real, and of course I know something about being a “trailing spouse.” Ultimately, the charm of Emily Blunt and Jason Segel carried the day and made us forgive absurdities such as the wedding finale. One of the best comic absurdities, played absolutely straight, […]
For those hungering for more Lord of the Rings, this is your ticket: mass movements of armies on horseback, trees that move, morphing birds, little people with pleasing personalities, scads of black magic, aerial pull-away photography and a sincere and pure heir of a kingdom on a quest. I don’t mean to diminish Snow White […]
I’m trying to think of one thing in this movie that wasn’t absurd, but I can’t come up with anything. Start with why the Scandinavian gorgeous (and smart and sensitive) Diana would be in love with Roger, her short, creepy, pompous husband. Next, how Roger expects to get millions by fencing a stolen Rubens that […]
A brilliantly droll faux-documentary by Richard Linklater in which all the fun comes from laughing at the East Texan talking heads – and since these are mainly real East Texans we don’t feel guilty about laughing at them, instead of with them, although that is mainly what we are doing. The three real actors – […]
As with every Shakespeare play, I wish I had read at least the first two acts before witnessing the production, to familiarize myself with the dialogue as well as the characters. Not having done this, I found 50% of the lines unintelligible, despite the actors’ good efforts. Nevertheless, the acting was so good that the […]
This French film brilliantly thrust us inside the Versailles court of Louis XVI: as the camera trailed through the candlelit corridors of power you could almost smell the perfumed wigs and taste the personal agendas. Needless to say, the suits and dresses, above all Marie-Antoinette’s, were sensationally beautiful; but by relying heavily on close-ups, director […]
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