Category: 3 Stars
-
Tina Fey raids her rolodex for Baby Mama
As a true comedy auteur, Tina Fey’s acting has always come in tandem with her own writing. This double act has progressed from improv comedy at The Second City, to head writer for Saturday Night Live, to supporting player in the feature film Mean Girls, (for which she wrote the screenplay), and finally to executive…
-
Ang Lee’s very un-titillating erotic thriller Se, jie (Lust, Caution)
As a public service, this blog would like to issue a warning to anyone that under the impression that Se, jie (Lust, Caution) is an NC-17 erotic thriller. Judging from the marketing campaign alone, one might understandably imagine that the latest film from the director of Sense & Sensibility and Eat Drink Man Woman would…
-
Roger Deakins is the true star of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Had I seen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford earlier, I might have included it among my Most Disappointing Films of 2007. Certainly not because it’s “bad,” for could I make a better movie myself? Could I make a movie at all? And who appointed me a critic, anyway? But this…
-
Blue Man Group: The Complex Rock Tour Live
This blogger may have to burn his Rock Snob card, for I just watched and enjoyed the Blue Man Group concert film The Complex Rock Tour Live. I’d long assumed that the Blue Man Group’s seemingly permanent residency on Lafayette Street in downtown Manhattan was some kind of tourist trap like Mars 2112 or Jekyll…
-
Fish vs. fowl in Taika Waititi’s Eagle vs. Shark
I’m not sure I took Taika Waititi’s Eagle vs. Shark as it may have been intended. A sort of New Zealand answer to Napoleon Dynamite, Eagle vs. Shark is the story of two misfit losers finding each other when no one else will have them. But I found one character as sympathetic as the other…
-
Jason Statham robs Lloyds Bank in The Bank Job
The Bank Job is notable for being an at least partly “true” expose into the spectacular (and successful) robbery of Lloyds Bank in London in 1971. For whatever reason, an anonymous participant of the investigation chose to cooperate in the making of this fictionalized film rather than a book or magazine article. If even partly…
-
The atmospheres and soundtracks of Al Reiner’s Apollo Missions documentary For All Mankind
It was a weird experience to finally see the original film for the soundtrack to which I’ve listened to countless times. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois’ Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks is a gorgeous piece of work, and very much colored my expectations of what the film would be. Having long pictured a largely abstract compilation…
-
Dreams and memory in Satoshi Kon’s Paprika
There’s a huge interest in Japanese manga and anime in the US, but it’s rare for an anime feature film to get a theatrical release. From the name and poster alone (indeed, what caught my own interest), one might not even guess Paprika is foreign-language, let alone anime. Anime is a medium, not a genre,…
-
Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding
I very much loved writer/director Noah Baumbach‘s previous film The Squid and The Whale, blessed with an excellent script and superb performances all around (especially by the versatile Jeff Daniels – heartbreaking in Pleasantville, and capable of humanizing no less an icon than George Washington in The Crossing). Margot at the Wedding features another dysfunctional…
-
Téa Leoni clings to the menacing Ben Kingsley in You Kill Me
The first thing to say about You Kill Me is to give props to Ben Kingsley, if for no other reason than my fear that he will break my kneecaps if I don’t. Even after his terrifying turn in Sexy Beast, it’s still a surprise to see how perfectly natural for him to inhabit a…