s
s
Sections
Sections
Sections
Sections
Subscribe

If you had a mother, you should see Tully

In Tully, the title character (played by Mackenzie Davis) is the night-time nanny which an overwhelmed post-natal mother of three says she doesn’t want or need (but is nonetheless grateful for a full night’s sleep). Oscar-winning screenwriter (for Juno) Diablo Cody collaborates once again with director Jason Reitman and actor Charlize Theron to create a timely tale of what life is really like for American females as they grow through the different stages of life. Everyone involved is at the top of their game, and the result is an instantly identifiable, and very realistic portrait of the inner and outward challenges inherent in the “Super Mom” mythology.

By | May 4th, 2018|0 Comments

Amp up with Avengers: Infinity War, then chill out with Summer In the Forest

A decade of Marveldom culminates in he “lets throw everybody together” film, Avengers: Infinity War, where the superheroes “battle for the universe itself.” If you take a moment to ask “didn’t they already do that?” then you spoil the buzz that brings almost everybody else on the surface of the planet to a theater. I’m stoked because my favorites get the best one-liners before things turn deadly serious. Once there,  the shocks to our belief systems collide together in spectacular set pieces from which some of good guys don’t seem to survive. But what do we know? The Marvel Universe seems to be endlessly expanding, and marvelous things could happen in the future version already dubbed Part II. NOTE: The credits take over ten minutes before the “top secret reveal” for the next film appears. So unless power/temperature technician Christopher O. Brooks is your brother and you have to stick around to see his name scroll past, you have plenty of time for a much needed trip to the restroom (after all, the movie is almost 2 and 1/2 hours long!)

By | April 27th, 2018|0 Comments

Geoffrey Rush shines as Giacometti in Final Portrait

Director Stanley Tucci knows how important the absence of words can be for some critical scenes. So do Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush and Emmy-winner Tony Shaloub. So when this threesome creates their magic within sculptor/painter Alberto Giacometti’s casually littered Paris studio, the result is sublime. The film’s  Final Portrait title refers to a black, silver-grey, and white portrait of American-born author James Lord where the eyes peer sphynx-like from a figure posed like the famous seated statues of Ramses II.   In contrast to Rush and Shaloub, Armie Hammer’s performance as James Lord seems like he was more comfortable hiding behind the Lone Ranger’s mask which he wore in the film where Johnny Depp overacted in the Tonto role. So forget Hammer and revel in watching Geoffrey Rush create a larger-than-life portrait of a different kind. 

By | April 20th, 2018|0 Comments

Itzhak Perlman doc is endearing

Although his polio-induced paralysis prevented young Itzhak Perlman from attending Julliard, he did appear as a 13-year-old on the Ed Sullivan TV show. His talent as a “fiddle player” is legendary, but what Alison Chernick’s endearing documentary, Itzhak,  reveals is how much fun Itzhak has everyday. We get to see him play the National Anthem at a Mets game, tag along on a visit to Tel Aviv, and delight in the joy involved in ordering pickles by phone. 

By | April 13th, 2018|0 Comments

John Krasinski’s Quiet Place is astoundingly original

John Krasinski, who most people remember as the “nice guy” from The Office TV show, is the talented actor/director/producer/co-writer behind the creepy and very original sci-fi horror film A Quiet Place. The family at the center of the movie communicate with sign language, creep about barefoot, and have even created a sand-covered path to town for the sole purpose of remaining as quiet as they can. So instead of talking heads, the movie is filled with the ambient sounds of the house and surrounding woods—or no sound at all when we see through the deaf daughter’s POV. We learn the underlying reason for all this stillness is one of simple survival. The BEM’s (bug-eyed-monsters) who have invaded Earth may not see very well, but they they utilize their helluva sense of hearing to track and eat whomever happens to make noise. I don’t want to reveal anything else except to say that Emily Blunt’s version of wife and mother steals the film.

By | April 6th, 2018|0 Comments

Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs is a must-see

I just recorded the April 8th broadcast of my NPR radio show Word By Word with award-winning storyteller Greg Sarris and his new book How A Mountain Was Made. It turned into a mini-class on the rhythms, structures, and thematic elements involved in sharing culturally important stories (in this case, the Miwok Creation Myths). So when watching Wes Anderson’s newly-created movie-myth, The Isle of Dogs, I could immediately see the subtle profundity of what he (joined by story creators Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola, and Kunichi Nomura), have done in this stop-motion masterpiece. I don’t want to give away the twists and turns of the unfolding story, but in the simplest terms, it is a futuristic sci-fi allegory where, because of a canine pandemic, all of Japan’s dogs are dumped on a trash-dump island to survive as best they can. One boy misses his pet so much, he flies to the island to find him. After a crash landing, the dogs ask each other, “Are we eating him, or rescuing him?” Brilliantly, the Japanese characters speak Japanese, and the dogs speak English. I suggest that you bring a copy of this column with you to the theater, so you will have a handy list of voice-actors at the ready when you play “who is that actor?” with yourself.

By | March 30th, 2018|0 Comments

Revel in Andy Goldsworthy doc, Leaning Into the Wind

In 2001, Thomas Riedelsheimer’s lyrical documentary called Rivers and Tides focused on the environmental sculptor Andy Goldsworthy creating some of his transitory outdoor installations. Fifteen years later, the a filmmaker’s Leaning Into the Wind once again tracks the artist (now joined by his grown daughter, Holly) as they create works in Brazil, Spain, France, Scotland, New Hampshire and San Francisco. The result is a journey through one of Goldsworthy’s most important mediums—time. 

By | March 23rd, 2018|0 Comments

Go see the high school romance Love, Simon

Love, Simon captures the essence of what it means (meant?) to be a teen today (or 5 years ago?) by focusing on the core of male and female “best friends forever” who pal around together, stick up for each other against bullies, and casually undercut each other’s confidence with sarcasm and misdirected wit. Simon is a closeted gay male having a secret e-mail relationship with another closeted guy in the same school, and like Becky Albertalli’s book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the film uses a high school production of the musical Oliver as the glue that holds a group of old and new friends together. Cross-dressing characters (Oliver is played by a girl onstage), mistaken identities, threats to reveal the secret e-mails, helicopter parents, and the ubiquitous “who am I anyway?” question suggest more than a trace of a classic Shakespearean farce—but one with a positive message. 

By | March 16th, 2018|0 Comments

A Wrinkle In Time needs more ironing

Based upon Madeline L’Engle’s 1962 novel, A Wrinkle In Time, this was a film labelled “impossible to make.”  Underneath all the glitter, glamour and sci-fi, special effects, it is a simple story of a girl’s search for her missing father, and the archetype story line works well. However the numerous time-transitions still need quite a bit or ironing to get the wrinkles out. The “fairy-godmothers” AKA “three witches” are called “Missus” here, and the actors cast to play them seem to be having a heck-of-a-lotta fun. Much has been written about how this $100 million+ film is created, directed, and stars larger-than-life women, so it is ironic that it is the guys (most noticeably Chris Pine as the father and Deric McCabe as the quirky little brother) who steal the movie. 

By | March 9th, 2018|0 Comments

Nothing above 1 piece of toast for this Oscar weekend

“Modernizing” the La Femme Nikita trope by adding scenes of porno/voyeuristic kinky sex and torture, Red Sparow's filmmakers have the gall to advertise this as a “female empowerment film.” In a nutshell, it is the calculated debasement of Dominika, a beautiful and talented Bolshoi Ballet dancer who loses everything after a graphic onstage injury. Faced with the prospect of she and her invalid mother being thrown into the streets, she agrees to help her leering uncle with “an assignment.” It turns out to be a Secret Service assassination, and the only witnesses allowed to stay alive are members of “The Agency.” Faced with the choice of “sign-up or die,” she chooses life and ends up in a torture school run by a sadistic headmistress who tells Dominika “your body belongs to the state.” After way to many scenes of gratuitous, voyeuristic sex and violence, Dominika is sent to Budapest to seduce an American spy who may (or may not) know the identity of a Russian double agent. This last bit never works, and just seems tacked on to the BDSM-themed torture-fest.

By | March 2nd, 2018|0 Comments