In my possession is a movie still that I’ve been magnetting to various refrigerators for some time now. It depicts an enraged stick-figure woman with a That Girl flip… well, just look to your right. Until last week I had no idea that this primitive-looking image is a scene from Don Hertzfeldt’s clever 1995 short […]
Movies
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Running guns all over the world
Despite the apathy of the wealthy nations, including the United States, and the sporadic attention of the news media, it apparently takes the film industry to recognize the deplorable suffering of millions of people in Africa. A number of recent movies, including such varied titles as Tears of the Sun, Beyond Borders, Hotel Rwanda, and […]
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Falling far from the tree
“If you don’t know where the fuck we are right now, just look around. You’re making a goddamn documentary, so you don’t have to have me say in front of the camera where we are.” There’s probably nothing more frustrating for a director than to be directed himself, but filmmaker Mark Wexler should have expected […]
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Another visit from the Prince of
Ever since The Exorcist recognized the potential of demonic forces and opened up a whole new territory of dread — familiarly known as Hell on Earth — which the makers of horror flicks quickly explored, Satan in one manifestation or another became a frequent menace in the form. The devil and/or his assistants inhabit a […]
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City’s choice: Saraband
Although he had announced some time ago that he was giving up filmmaking, Ingmar Bergman, now 86, has directed a new movie, Saraband. A kind of sequel, after the passage of some 30 years, to his Scenes From a Marriage, the picture reunites the principals from that work, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, as Marianne […]
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There are still plenty of conspiracies
The destruction of the Berlin Wall signaled not only the demise of Soviet Communism and the end of Cold War, but also, for many literary commentators, the death of the spy novel and consequently, of the career of its most distinguished contemporary practitioner, John le Carré. That structure had served as the great monument to […]
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Here’s the kicker: Grandma is dead
When I see a film in a theater, I spend almost as much time observing the other moviegoers as I do staring at the screen. I’m not some creepy, trenchcoated voyeur, but witnessing the unbridled reactions of strangers to something as intimate as art is a rare opportunity for insight into your fellow man. As […]
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Happy endings can be relative
When the phone rings late at night, my initial reaction is to wonder who might have died. Upon being asked “Can I talk to you?” I instinctively survey my surroundings and make a mental note of the exits. And once I learn that a film like The Brothers Grimm has spent a couple years growing […]
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Exploring the mysteries of inner
As the summer draws near its inevitable end, this year even the seasonal blockbusters exhibit a certain fatigue, as if Hollywood itself gradually succumbed to heat, humidity, and box office lethargy. From the laborious dullness of Revenge of the Sith to the ersatz warfare of Stealth to the bourgeois melodrama of The War of the […]
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Your days of plenty are numbered
I know what you’re about to do. You’re planning to read the first paragraph and then the last one to find out what I thought about The Edukators. It’s okay — I understand you’re lazy… I mean busy. But I can’t accommodate all you movers and shakers this week. As a matter of fact, you […]
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A journey without an ending
Jim Jarmusch’s highly praised new movie, Broken Flowers, demonstrates his gradual climb from a postion as one of the darlings of the art houses to something approaching the status of a tolerated if not an entirely mainstream filmmaker. Just before the release of the film the New York Times Magazine devoted several pages to him […]
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Forgotten heroes of another war
It seems more than coincidence that The Great Raid appears just as the nation and the news media note the 60th anniversary of VJ Day, providing yet another reminder of the courage and sacrifice demanded of a previous generation. Instead of posturing politicians and droning heads on the television screen, however, the new movie presents, […]
