I am still using this blog! The recent, short post was meant for another blog.
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Intense Empathy: My review of Two Days, One Night
A- Drama Written and directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne Roger Ebert once described cinema as "a machine that generates empathy." Few films show off that important capability better than the Dardenne brother's latest achievement, Two Days, One Night. I can't imagine anyone watching this film without worrying about, rooting for, and identifying with the … Continue reading Intense Empathy: My review of Two Days, One Night
The Interview at the New Parkway (Spoiler: The theater didn’t blow up)
I haven't written anything yet about The Interview and its assorted release problems. Why should I? Everyone else has already written about it. Besides, I was on vacation. Now I'm back. Sunday night, my wife and I saw Kim Jong Un's least favorite movie at the New Parkway. Perhaps it was a case of lowered … Continue reading The Interview at the New Parkway (Spoiler: The theater didn’t blow up)
Fantasy for the family that thinks together: Time Bandits on Criterion Blu-ray
At his creative height in the 1980s, Terry Gilliam wrote and directed some of the dizziest, imaginative fantasies ever projected. He would mash up well-known myths, social satire, amazing (but cheap) special effects, the surreal comedy of Monty Python (he was, after all, their token Yank), and a busily baroque visual style all his own. … Continue reading Fantasy for the family that thinks together: Time Bandits on Criterion Blu-ray
Wild: Hiking, Health, and Heroin
A drama Written by Nick Hornby, from a memoir by Cheryl Strayed Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée Judging from this adaptation of her memoirs, Cheryl Strayed led a pretty wild life, until she walked into the real wild and got herself together. I don't know or care whether the film is accurate to Strayed's memoirs or … Continue reading Wild: Hiking, Health, and Heroin
Physics Saturday: Interstellar and The Theory of Everything
I saw two very different movies on Saturday, but both were about physics. Well, sort of. Physics and fiction don't blend together unless you can work in suspense, romance, tragedy, horrible diseases, and special effects. Although one movie is a big, expensive Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster, and the other a British Indiewood biopic, their titles are … Continue reading Physics Saturday: Interstellar and The Theory of Everything
Birdman, Dear White People, & Citizenfour–new movies I’ve seen recently
Here are three new films I caught in theaters recently. A- Birdman Michael Keaton plays a has-been movie star hoping to gain artistic respectability by writing, directing, and performing in a Broadway play. But as he goes through rehearsals and previews, everything seems to be spinning out of control. What's more, he either has supernatural … Continue reading Birdman, Dear White People, & Citizenfour–new movies I’ve seen recently
The Better Angels
B+ Historical drama Written and directed by A.J. Edwards About half way through A.J. Edwards' gentle exploration of our 16th president (and my namesake), it occurred to me that a native-born American who hadn't paid much attention in history class might not realize that the film was about Abraham Lincoln. Names are seldom spoken, and … Continue reading The Better Angels
The Mediocre Fascist: The Conformist comes to Blu-ray
Fascist states don't really need that many committed fascists. But they do need ambitious, unscrupulous, and cowardly people. In Bernardo Bertolucci's brilliant character study of a man lacking character, we see political murder as an act of a bureaucrat. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Marcello Clerici as a confused, emotionally cut-off cog in the wheel of Mussolini's … Continue reading The Mediocre Fascist: The Conformist comes to Blu-ray
Force Majeure: Vacation isn’t what it used to be
A- drama Written & directed by Ruben Östlund The carefully controlled, not-quite-natural outdoor experience of a fancy ski resort becomes a metaphor for the veneer of a troubled marriage in this Swedish drama set in the French alps. Tomas and Ebba (Johannes Kuhnke and Lisa Loven Kongsli) take their two young children on what is … Continue reading Force Majeure: Vacation isn’t what it used to be
Bayflicks 