I was less than enthralled throughout, partially because I was never comfortable with the premise: a troubled mother abandons her infant in the backseat of a taxi and the genial driver spends two days trying to return or find a home for the baby. Not that this couldn’t happen – although finding such a saintly […]
At first I dismissed this as a Sicilian version of the Sopranos without plot, humor, recognizable characters or professional camerawork. By the end, though, I knew the people and their stories had coalesced into a bleak, violent and scary world of an Italian crime “family” that read more like a nature documentary in its realism […]
It was rather shocking to me to learn that the L.A. Times didn’t seriously undertake to impartially cover the news until 1960, when 4th-generation Otis Chandler became publisher. Until then, it openly touted the Chandlers’ business and political interests, “inventing L.A.” in the process. This documentary was highly polished but lacking in focus: the first […]
In marked contrast to Vacation – who would think the first two films I see at the Santa Barbara Film Festival would both take place inside prisons! – the Bulgarian esthetic is apparently raucous and messy. Or, you could say, loud and lewd. The story involves a petty criminal who wades through unbearable shit in […]
An engrossing, oh-so-Japanese indirect reflection on the death penalty, told through the story of prison guard Toru Hirai, who volunteers to assist at the execution-by-hanging of prisoner Kaneda the day before his wedding. I was confused by the intercutting of his two worlds: the prison drama unfolded in orderly fashion, but the world outside proceeded […]
Here are some of my questions: If Hannah was not intellectually curious, why did she take so readily to Homer, Chekov and Mark Twain? If she was intellectually curious, why had she not taught herself to read, or asked someone to teach her, before she was 60? If she was a shy recluse, why did […]
Yes, it was a virtuoso acting performance by Mickey Rourke, onscreen the whole movie, but it was like he was acting in a vacuum, or a paper bag. Evan Rachel Wood and the marvelous Marisa Tomei notwithstanding, there was no interaction with another person that engaged or convinced. No man approaching 50, who had abused […]
The point, the argument, and the cases were muddled in this recap of Nazi art looting. What the Nazis did was despicable, of course, but the case of a distant heir against a good-faith purchaser (or beneficiary) is not a case of good v. evil, and the film never recognized this. Whether Klimt’s portrait of […]
It’s hard to tell how much of the film’s power comes from its production and how much from the underlying historical events it portrays. Not in question, however, is the virtuosity of Sean Penn’s performance: the distance of Harvey Milk from the world of Mystic River adds to Penn’s credentials as the greatest actor of […]
A character study – no more, no less – of a high-energy, happy-go-lucky 30-year-old who is putting off adulthood for no bad reason. Her goofy intensity, or intense goofiness, can rub people the wrong way or be endearing: characters in the film showed both reactions and I shared them. At the end, however, I was convinced I […]
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