Your mission this Memorial Day Weekend — should you choose to accept it — is to postpone seeing the latest big-budget lobotomathon and instead get an advance peek at the future of cinema. On Sunday, May 28, the School of Film and Animation at Rochester Institute of Technology is presenting their annual Honors Show, with […]
Movies
Posted inMovies
Another grail quest, in codes and ciphers
Like the book it is based on, The Da Vinci Code opens with a sequence showing the curator of the Louvre running through the museum, pursued by an albino assassin in a monk’s robe. As absurd as it sounds, that sequence, intercut with another of Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) lecturing an attentive audience on […]
Posted inMovies
The young and the restless
Wondering what’s happening this weekend at the Dryden Theatre? It’s so strange that you would ask, because that’s exactly what we’re going to discuss. First, however, you might want to get comfy for a little history lesson… Madame de Maintenon was the second wife of Louis XIV, a.k.a. the Sun King. Born in prison to […]
Posted inMovies
The world turned upside down
When The Poseidon Adventure first appeared in 1972, launching the grand series of disaster flicks that crowded the theaters in that time, it heralded a generation’s approach to the millennium, a microcosmic vision of the end of the world. To the palpable disappointment of literalists, Y2K believers (remember that fiasco?), and assorted nuts, the millennium […]
Posted inMovies
Another mission, another impossibility
The appearance of Mission: Impossible III, the latest chapter in what looks like yet another franchise series, indicates that global warming even affects the cinema. With the first blockbuster of the season opening the first week in May, summer now begins much earlier than in the past, which means that perhaps eventually Hollywood will create […]
Posted inMovies
The art of being yourself
When the gifted Jerome (Max Minghella, Bee Season) finally arrives at Strathmore, he assumes the Cro-Magnon bullying and unfair social strata of high school to be a thing of the past, the next four years chockablock with creative expression, respect, and open-minded (ahem) women. As Jerome will learn in the course of Art School Confidential, […]
Posted inMovies
The human tragedy of 9/11
The shocking attacks of September 11, 2001 generated a variety of responses beyond the predictable search for answers and explanations, including such amazingly un-American activities as preemptive invasion of another country, suspension of civil liberties, illegal surveillance of citizens, secret prisons, and officially sanctioned torture. But until now, oddly, it has inspired little in the […]
Posted inMovies
Sometimes size doesn’t matter
Whether the work hails from Paris, Los Angeles, or below the streets of Rochester, the assortment of short films that make up the 48th Rochester International Film Festival (some call it Movies on a Shoestring) seems unusually strong. This year saw 110 entries from 10 countries, with 32 films making the final cut. And since […]
Posted inMovies
Playtime is over
When Charles Bronson died someone should have shredded the blueprint for the revenge flick and sprinkled the confetti in his crypt. It’s a distasteful genre, showcasing frustrated victims who get “justice” by stooping to the same lows (and often lower) as their guilty targets. Hard Candy is the latest film to embrace the vigilante storyline, […]
Posted inMovies
Laura Bush and the Secret Service agent
In these politically charged times, any movie showing a fictional President of the United States inspires some sort of contemporary connection, which usually translates into the blowhards of the right-wing media spouting their customary vitriol. Because Independence Day, Air Force One, and The American President, for example, depicted a president in a positive light during […]
Posted inMovies
Our Rochester
“There are two cities of Rochester today. Both with very different looks, very different realities, and very different opportunities for the people that live there. One city is prospering and vibrant, the other poor and struggling. “One city sparkles with quality housing, strong neighborhoods, jobs, and access to a rich cultural life. The other city […]
Posted inMovies
Violence and identity in South Africa
Culture, including popular culture, follows the flag. Just as the British Empire in its greatest hour assured the dominance of English literature in the 19th century, so in our own day has American popular music, dress, and film prevailed in almost every area of the globe. Tom Cruise’s toothy smile beams from posters in Helsinki, […]
