Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
The Kabuli Kid 4
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 […]
Gomorrah – 8.5
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 […]
Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times
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 […]
Zift – 5
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 […]
Vacation 7
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 […]