The appearance of “God’s Pocket” suggests the ambiguity inherent in the preservative quality of art, possibly most apparent in the cinema. Something like a posthumous work, the movie stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, a strange, sad circumstance in which the man who died so recently, whose presence remains vivid in memory, of course looks familiar and […]
Film review
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Film Review: “Godzilla”
The last time Godzilla lumbered his way into theaters in an American-originated film was back in 1998, when director Roland Emmerich attempted to capitalize on audiences’ love affair with giant lizards — reawakened by the massive success of “Jurassic Park” and its sequel — by grafting them into another of his disaster porn epics, à […]
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Film Review: “Neighbors”
The best comedies — even the most ridiculous, raunchy, and foul-mouthed among them — are successful because they contain at least the tiniest grain of human truth, a recognizable bit of emotion that its audience can connect with on some level. In the case of “Neighbors,” the new comedy from Nicholas Stoller (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”), […]
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Film Review: “Fading Gigolo”
Woody Allen’s presence in John Turturro’s new movie may represent something like an imprimatur, suggesting that his influence extends beyond the pictures he himself directs. Presumably filtered through Turturro’s imagination, “Fading Gigolo,” like it or not, seems very like one or another Woody Allen movie. The setting, the simple plot and situation, along with an […]
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“Only Lovers Left Alive”
Leave it to Jim Jarmusch, the director who gave film audiences the “psychedelic western,” 1995’s “Dead Man,” and the gangster/samurai hybrid, “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” to find a way to put his own unique stamp on that most trendy of cinematic monsters: the vampire. In “Only Lovers Left Alive,” Jarmusch finds a […]
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Film Review: “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”
The new entry in the seemingly endless series of films emanating from the Marvel Comics factory demonstrates once again the level of maturity that the film industry expects from its target audience and also presumably the sort of content those audiences expect in today’s cinema. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” — actually the second volume in […]
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“The Railway Man”
Wars never really end, and as Faulkner said, the past is not even past — almost 70 years after the Japanese surrender in World War II, the horror of the conflict and the behavior of the enemy toward their Allied prisoners continue to trouble the memories of the survivors. A number of histories, memoirs, and […]
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“Under the Skin”
It’s been 10 long years since director Jonathan Glazer’s last film (2004’s genre-defying romance, “Birth”) but his latest proves to be every bit worth the wait. Based loosely on the novel by Michel Faber, “Under the Skin” stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien in human form, prowling through Scotland looking for unassuming men to lure […]
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“From the Rough”
The High Falls Film Festival is still six months away, but this Friday, April 25, the festival will host a special screening of the sports drama “From the Rough,” at the Little Theatre. The film tells the story of Dr. Catana Starks (Taraji P. Henson, “Hustle and Flow”), the first African-American woman to coach a […]
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“Jodorowsky’s Dune”
In telling the behind-the-scenes story of 70’s-era cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt to adapt Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic, “Dune,” into a movie, filmmaker Frank Pavich documents one of Hollywood’s most legendary tales of “What if?” Told largely by Jodorowsky himself, through ceaselessly entertaining talking head interviews, the director explains how he’d hoped his film […]
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“Philomena”
In the holiday season a weird combination of cinema circumstances usually prevails. On the one hand, the studios release a number of pictures aimed at children, Christmas movies full of good cheer, complete with cute animals and elves, just the thing for bored kids and desperate parents, along with blockbusters for the older crowd. Believing, […]
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FILM REVIEW: “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
Peter Jackson’s epic, three-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” continues with “The Desolation of Smaug,” and though it still suffers from some of the same issues that plagued the first installment — specifically feeling like an hour of story crammed into three hours of film — this chapter feels more confident, with a renewed […]
