“This is a true story but it is filtered through the imagination of a child who was acutely sensitive to the tragic events around him in German-occupied France.” French filmmaker Claude Berri would achieve international renown with arthouse hits like Jean de Florette and its sequel, Manon of the Spring, but for his 1967 film […]
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It’s our world and welcome to it
Although it presents a most convincing picture of current conditions in the Middle East, the political thriller Syriana may disappoint opponents of the Bush administration by its deliberate omission of any reference to particular people or political parties. At the same time, the movie shows the familiar faces of those in power, the corporate and […]
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Choose your weapons
Last seen making the audience extremely uncomfortable during her bit in
The Aristocrats, Sarah Silverman’s one-woman show gets
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‘Twas the noir before Christmas
Although it may not attain anything like a complete artistic success, The Ice Harvest provides a valuable antidote to the usual malaise of holiday entertainment. We suffer the endless cacophony of those stirring ballads about Frosty and Rudolph, the sentimental made-for-TV movies about the horribly dysfunctional family reuniting for Christmas after years of separation and […]
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A squid, a whale, and a white dog
Coming-of-age movies are easy to relate to because we’ve all done it. Most people have never embezzled $2 million from the mob or been chased through the woods by a homicidal maniac, but at one time or another every one of us has had to grow up (or you were supposed to, anyway). The backgrounds […]
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There may be hope for the art of cinema
Despite the general assumptions of so many cultural commentators about the dumbing down of American audiences and the consequent deterioration of the art of cinema (along with the decline of the West and the end of Civilization As We Know It), the critical and popular reception of some recent movies suggests some cause for hope. […]
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Find a way tojump over the moon
I’m not a big fan of modern movie musicals. While I can explain the oh-so-subtle nuances of the Munchkins to a 6-year-old and warble neighbor-taxing selections from My Fair Lady, I’ve found recent productions like Moulin Rouge and Chicago to be soulless and smug. As a professional, however, one must approach a film like Rent, […]
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Unhappiness and addiction, in the time honored tradition
For any veteran viewer of American cinema, the new Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, raises some serious questions about the relationships between life and art, and which one really imitates the other. According to the movies, all famous singers and musicians undergo pretty much the same troubles and travails on their journey to fame […]
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Final cut pro
By now you’ve probably seen that new The Shining trailer making the rounds on the Internet. Someone’s put a different spin on the Kubrick horror classic by reassembling a few snippets from the film and mixing them with drippy pop and a saccharine voiceover. Instead of Jack Nicholson playing a man who terrorizes his family […]
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All the normal girls hung on
At the dawn of the 21st century it seemed as though Robert Downey Jr. would be remembered as a cautionary example, just another instance of immense talent needlessly squandered due to an inability to cope. As 2006 looms, however, Downey is at the top of his game. His refined performance in George Clooney’s Good Night, […]
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Maybe you can fight fate
In the great tradition of the thriller, the new movie Derailed depends, at least initially, upon the notion that mere chance governs the universe, that men and women live and die according to no discernible rules and perhaps for no particular purpose. It also suggests, somewhat paradoxically, that a kind of fate flows from some […]
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Tender and true
Some girls are obvious, and some girls are not. The charming and graceful Shopgirl is a tribute to the latter as well as to those with the ability to appreciate the one milling in the corner rather than the one gyrating on the bar. Steve Martin adapted his best-selling novella for director Anand Tucker (Hilary […]
