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 […]
Movie Reviews
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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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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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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.
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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 […]
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Swedish surrealism via Peru and Python
Before going largely unnoticed during its extremely limited theatrical release last August, Songs From the Second Floor was a Jury Prize-winner at Cannes in 2000 and an invitee to Roger Ebert’s 2001 Overlooked Film Festival. Floor took Swedish writer/director Roy Andersson four years to complete. (And you thought you waited a long time for Stanley […]
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‘K-19’: a fascinating, refreshing blockbuster
Judging by the fact that it’s lasted so long and surfaces so frequently, the submarine movie should be plumbing the dark depths of the megaplexes for many years to come. Even in these times, its necessarily narrow set and limited cast make it a relatively economical project, and its concentration on complicated machinery, underwater photography, […]
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Bisset shines in sleepy ‘Gal’
“There just aren’t any good roles for women.” Now there’s a complaint you don’t hear too much anymore. It may no longer be an issue when actresses like Sissy Spacek, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger — all of whom did amazing work last year — still go home empty-handed at the Oscars, while Denzel Washington […]
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The Believer highlights second Jewish film fest
The bulk of Rochester’s film festival season doesn’t begin until October with the ImageOut and High Falls fests, but if you just can’t wait until the leaves change color, you’re in luck. The second annual Rochester Jewish Film Festival kicks off this Sunday, offering a diverse batch of features and shorts that will appeal to […]
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1930s-style gangsters, without the pace or pulse
Paul Newman and Tom Hanks star in Sam Mendes’s “Road to Perdition.” Perhaps because it constitutes just about the only adult movie (in the old sense of the term) of the summer so far, Sam Mendes’s Road to Perdition has provoked almost as many raves as his previous hit, the wildly overpraised American Beauty. Mendes […]
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They’re back and in black again
In its own accidental, absurd, and strictly for-profit way, Men in Black II provides something of a service for the movie audiences of today, suggesting some perhaps unsuspected truths and a continuing metaphor for its time and place. Following the amazing success of the first film (it was the biggest hit of 1997), the second […]
