As the new Robert De Niro film demonstrates, even so ostensibly simple and relatively ancient a form (at least for the cinema) as the cop flick, even in the blockbuster blossom time, possesses the potential to be more than mysteries, manhunts, and shootouts. Based on a true story, City by the Sea examines not only […]
Movie Reviews
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Shaking up our expectations
Shohei Imamura’s Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, which screens this Friday at the Dryden Theatre, is, at least at its foundation, remarkably similar to his critically acclaimed film The Eel. Both movies deal with a middle-aged, white-collar office drone who leaves a big city life to take up with a bunch of rural kooks […]
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When art is more real than life
That flashy, fabulous, and complicated entity familiarly known as Hollywood occupies so large and so important an area of the American cultural landscape that it provides a readily recognizable source of satire — it’s easy to make fun of the absurdity and exaggeration of the film industry, and nobody ever misses the joke. In addition, […]
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Southern comfort for film lovers
If the cinema, especially in the form of the summer spectacular, can transport us to the farthest boundaries of the universe and across the seas of time, it can also now and then traverse the shorter but more perilous expanses of the mind, explore the darker and more complicated territory of the human heart. […]
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LaBute disappoints, but ‘Sara’ meets expectations
Neil LaBute must have been tuning in to a lot of daytime television over the last couple of years, because I have to assume that anyone who has undergone this kind of career makeover must have been watching dogs get turned into beauty queens on Maury Povich on at least a semi-regular basis. The […]
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The Superman that we deserve
It surely suggests something about the state of the culture
when two of the biggest hits of the summer, accompanied by enormous quantities
of the usual hoopla and hype, playing practically around the clock in a theater
near everyone, descend in some twisted way from the James Bond novels and
films.
Posted inMovies
Classic film noir comes to town
Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South Street opens with a scene that is downright dazzling, even by today’s standards. It takes place on a crowded New York City subway. As people shift about, a man and woman eventually end up face to face. They begin to make goo-goo eyes at each other, but the flirtation […]
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Still Eastwood, after all these years
At the age of 72, when most of his peers no doubt contemplate the sunset of their lives and professions, Clint Eastwood obviously retains both his creative intelligence and, perhaps more surprisingly, his on-screen appeal. One of America’s most accomplished contemporary filmmakers, he has produced, written, directed, and starred in scores of motion pictures, […]
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Eating, drinking, and peaking too early
When I was in grammar school, there was this one kid (we’ll call him Butch) who was light years ahead of everyone else physically. I even remember our phys ed teacher shaking his head over Butch’s amazing abilities, which were on display no matter what goofy sport we were being forced to participate in. Needless […]
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Circles in the corn, field of nightmares
Back in the 1950s, the
heyday of the alien invasion flick, it really meant something when those
saucers hovered over great cities, zapping buildings and disintegrating people
with their death rays, and uniting the world in opposition to defeat the
otherwise superior beings from outer space, who of course filled in for the Red
Menace.
Posted inMovies
A brilliant ‘Conversations’
Beginning with its ending and cobbled together via out-of-order celluloid chunks in the vein of Pulp Fiction, Jill Sprecher’s sophomore offering, 13 Conversations About One Thing, (also opening Friday at the Little) is as brilliant a second film as you’re likely to see.
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The triumph of the juvenile
It seems a shame that Ian Fleming, whose James Bond novels — which nobody (including the screenwriters and directors) seems to read these days — couldn’t live long enough to witness the full impact of his creation on world culture and the visual arts. The Bond movies have transcended their literary originals to become a […]
