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 […]
An earnest and sympathetic look at the plight of two Palestinian lovers, deprived of their relationship, and ultimately their lives, by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and stranglehold on Gaza. The male lead, unfortunately, was not appealing by Western standards, nor was his conduct particularly commendable. His female love, on the other hand, […]
From time to time I venture outside my comfort zone, to check on a genre I normally avoid, when reviews indicate a work may have some unusual merit. Thus, I watched this “horror film,” one intended for the young adult mass market, not the independent adult. I can’t say it was a mistake, but, as […]
Yet another criminal underworld is brought to the cinema: the world of Belgian cattle dopers. Nor are we familiar with Walloons as a different subspecies. But all this is windowdressing for the central portrayal of a man gone mad, a man obsessed with his body in compensation for what he lacks, a man who finally […]
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