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4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Writer and director Cristian Mungiu’s 4 luni, 3 s?pt?mâni ?i 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) is an unsensational drama on a very sensational topic. Like Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, it is shot in Dogme style with a handheld camera, long takes, and no score. Both films remorselessly lead…
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Jack Black and Mos Def are misfit auteurs in Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind
Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind is a more mainstream effort than the personal and heartfelt The Science of Sleep, but still imbued with his signature handmade style and many of his particular (some might say peculiar) obsessions. The premise is brilliant in its simplicity: a pair of misfit doofuses accidentally erase every tape in their…
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Get a Real Job! or, Thoughts on Pseudo.com
Bringing new meaning to the phrase “get a real job,” I now learn that my last full-time gig was for a “fake company.” Years after the fact of its demise, Pseudo.com founder Josh Harris has pronounced to Boing Boing that Pseudo Programs Inc. was in fact a massive performance art piece, aided and abetted by…
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The Rashomon effect in Pete Travis’ Vantage Point
Vantage Point is an awesome technical achievement, and I don’t mean that to damn it with faint praise. Director Pete Travis and writer Barry Levy demonstrate excellent plotting, spatial sense, editing, logistics, and continuity. As a thriller it moves forward relentlessly, and feels comprehensible, self-contained, and very satisfying. It is structured around a single gimmick,…
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Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney are the second first couple in Tom Hooper’s John Adams
This blog celebrates Independence Day 2008 in a New York City Starbucks, tapping out a review of the HBO miniseries John Adams. Believe it or not, the timing is accidental, but July 4th has proven to be an auspicious date in American History. On-and-off-again friends and foes Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on…
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Low get political in David Kleijwegt’s You May Need a Murderer
It may seem overkill for the so-called slowcore band Low to be the subject of another documentary feature film only a mere four years after Low in Europe, but it must be because they’re just so interesting. Filmmaker David Kleijwegt’s You May Need a Murderer could just as well be titled Low in America, as…
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Hepburn and Tracy’s battle of the sexes in George Stevens’ Woman of the Year
George Stevens’ Woman of the Year is one of the most famous Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn double-acts, but there’s no question who was the real star. Discounting a brief glimpse of her character’s newspaper byline, there is much talk of star reporter Tess Harding (Hepburn) before her delayed reveal. In a scene that would…
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Crin blanc: Le cheval sauvage (White Mane) and Le ballon rouge (The Red Balloon)
Janus Films and the Criterion Collection have released two classic short films for children from French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse: White Mane (1952), and The Red Balloon (1956). Each is mostly silent, with only the odd line or two of dialogue. In essence, both are extended chase sequences that deserve to be taught in film school.…
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You won’t like Edward Norton when he’s angry in The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk is Hollywood’s latest incidence of what has become known as a “reboot.” The term came out of the comic book world, with further derivations in computer terminology. When a franchise begins to show its age with stalled creative energy and declining sales, its owners may opt to check it into surgery to…
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It’s the end of the world in Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain
Michael Crichton’s novel The Andromeda Strain was first adapted into a feature film in 1971, and now into a television miniseries from executive producers Tony and Ridley Scott. This 2008 incarnation is part feel-bad thriller, part wish fulfillment. As we thrill to the speculative illustration of how civilization might suddenly come to an end, we…
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The Pied Piper takes a generation away in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter
Lest the brevity of this post indicate otherwise, The Sweet Hereafter is one of my favorite films. Although I’ve read the original novel by Russell Banks and seen Atom Egoyan’s film several times, I feel ill-equipped to “review” it. It is quietly heartbreaking and devastating, and difficult to capture in words. Robert Browning’s tale The…
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Indiana Jones returns to form in The Last Crusade
In order to catch up on the overwhelming backlog of movies I intend to cover here on this blog, this blogger is going to keep it brief with a few disconnected thoughts: Re-watching the original trilogy as an adult is an interesting experience; even the first time around as a kid I was right: Raiders…