Totally over-the-top performance by Nicolas Cage, one of my favorite ott actors, in film by Werner Herzog, my favorite ott director. Corrupt on the outside, with great police instincts on the inside, our lieutenant with the consuming drug addiction found new ways to be hysterical in every scene and somehow made me root for his […]
Extremely Hitchcockian music, by Alexandre Desplat, and the bleakly austere setting of “Martha’s Vineyard,” made one sense danger at every turn. Pierce Brosnan, Ewan MacGregor and especially Olivia Williams acted beautifully, and the pieces fit together like a Swiss watch. In short, this was a wonderfully made film. The only problem was the plot, which […]
No real surprises among this year’s Oscar winners, although Time’s prediction sheet managed 12 wrong, to 12 right. What dawned on me, however, as it must have before, is how much the Oscars are little more than a popularity contest, rather than a recognition of technical talent. I’m not referring to Sandra Bullock’s win over […]
A forgettable piffle, saved mainly by being a French piffle and the lovely Juliette Binoche. Saw it on the plane four days ago and have already forgotten what it was about.
A hilarious riff by the Coen Bros on growing up Jewish in St. Louis Park, 1967. A latter-day Job (though I should re-read the book), beset by calamity after another, with allusions as well to Sodom and Gomorrah, while Larry seeks to find out how Hashem talks to mortals, and what he is saying. The […]
Strangely unaffecting, in a Chekovian manner. Aristocrats stand around distraught, but we don’t care. About them, the Tolstoyan movement, or Tolstoy’s copyrights. The announced theme is Love, but there is no real chemistry between Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer; and the younger couple, James McEvoy and the luscious Kerry Condon, exhibit more lust, or puppy […]
Michael Haneke’s meditation on cruelty, or evil?, as embedded in German culture, or humanity?, in 1914. The father figures alternated between humiliating their women and beating their children, a lesson the children had learned all too well and practiced on the weakest among them. The world at large was not much better, as we were […]
For Hollywood cornpone, this was done well and was a lot of fun (cf. Whip It). Sandra Bullock ate up the screen, but I was just as enamored of Tim McGraw as her easygoing husband and Collins and S.J., their two age-appropriate kids. By making Michael silent and rather opaque (cf. Precious), we could focus […]
A noble effort to tell the important story of a great African athlete, Abebe Bikila. The exciting parts, however, came from archival footage of his two Olympic victories. The movie’s focus, instead, seemed to be on his efforts to compete, after a car accident as a paraplegic, as an archer and dog-sled racer – neither […]
Nigel Gilchrist, noted travel writer in dialogue at the SB Museum on Thursday, pointed out how important travel was to the understanding of art: one should experience of the theatricality of everyday life in Rome to appreciate the works of Caravaggio, Bernini, et al. The same can be said for the cinema, and our recent […]
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