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Favorite Few
Published Dec. 30, 2008
Short of the outlying fields of basketball playoffs (the Jayhawks, the Celtics) and Presidential campaigns (Obamanos!), strictly confined instead to my assigned field, the year just past felt pretty dismal. On the personal front, Manny Farber, ...
Finish Line
Published Dec. 23, 2008
Don’t open before Christmas: The Reader is the trite and true story of a once fat and sassy alternative free weekly, now struggling for survival amidst a plummeting economy, skyrocketing paper costs, shrinking page size, ...
Stretch Drive
Published Dec. 17, 2008
Counting down the final movies till Christmas.... Doubt, from the prize-winning stage play by John Patrick Shanley, is an ambiguous drama of possible priestly pedophilia at a Catholic school in the Bronx. The playwright, perhaps ...
Nook and Cranny Published Dec. 10, 2008
The natural suspicion surrounding any and all of the “alternative” programs at the Reading Gaslamp (né Pacific Gaslamp) is that these must be films that ... More Post a comment
Struggle and Strife Published Nov. 25, 2008
Got Milk. An affirmation, that, not a question. Gus Van Sant’s biopic on Harvey Milk, the gay-rights activist and San Francisco City Supervisor martyred by ... More Comments (3)
Irredeemable Bond Published Nov. 12, 2008
It sounds more like a sensitive literary little indie, maybe something to do with a Physics teacher passed over for tenure and consoled in the ... More Comments (11)
Change for the Worse Published Nov. 5, 2008
Clint Eastwood was due for a dud. Changeling stacks up as his flattest film, his stumpiest film, since Blood Work, bookending his hot streak of ... More Comments (2)
Up Pops Poppy Published Oct. 29, 2008
This is the new world order. Any movie that wants to be seen as Serious, however delusional it may be, wants to enter the Oscar ... More Comment (1)
Deeper Mystery Published Oct. 15, 2008
The preponderance of Claude Chabrol’s fifty-some films fit under the umbrella of “thriller,” and no matter how tepid the temperature of his more recent ones ... More Post a comment
Saddle Up Published Oct. 8, 2008
Like any aficionado of the Western, or of any other genre for that matter, I’m picky. The nonaficionado, if he ventured to attend at all, ... More Comments (2)
Blinded by the Light Published Oct. 1, 2008
Here’s another bucketful. Blindness. Serious-minded science fiction, allegorical as you like, about an epidemic of “the white sickness,” a new form of sightlessness that plunges ... More Post a comment
In Bulk Published Sept. 24, 2008
We can easily tell when summer’s over. In lieu of the lazy pace of one mainstream blockbuster and an also-ran, plus perhaps one or two ... More Comments (2)
Got Smart Published Sept. 17, 2008
Perception that the Coen brothers are running a little low on inspiration, albeit still nowhere near empty, will not now need to be radically revised. ... More Comments (6)
Seasons Go Published Sept. 3, 2008
Have passions cooled? Can we discuss calmly? Without dispute The Dark Knight was the big story of the cinematic summer, which is the same as ... More Comments (19)
An End Published Aug. 27, 2008
He was ninety-one-and-a-half. It had been a long and gradual decline. Yet how quickly I could switch over from “I can’t believe he’s still here” ... More Comments (3)
A Jungle Out There Published Aug. 20, 2008
Human pretension is generally good for a laugh. Two new comedies to do with the Creative Process, unequal in size, equally uneven in quality, equally ... More Post a comment
Woodwork Published Aug. 13, 2008
You can’t claim that Woody Allen’s rapid rate of production doesn’t show. Even the title of his latest handiwork sounds more like brainstorming for a ... More Comments (3)
Reason to Believe Published July 30, 2008
It may be an advantage not to be an X-File-o-phile. If, like me, you have seen no more than a handful of episodes from the ... More Comment (1)
Blackout Published July 23, 2008
When the smoke clears, The Dark Knight should emerge as just another comic-book movie, the fourth of the summer (Hancock wasn’t based on a comic ... More Comments (39)
Cultural Contamination Published July 16, 2008
If Tell No One does not give us what we expect and want from a French thriller, part of the reason must lie in its ... More Comment (1)
Look! Up in the Sky! Published July 2, 2008
Two ideas has Hancock. The first may be summed up in the term “anti-superhero,” or if you prefer it, “super-antihero.” The hero, that is to ... More Comments (3)
World Gone Mad Published June 25, 2008
The advent of a Dario Argento film is an undoubted occasion, whether or not one to celebrate. Not since 1991, by my records, has one ... More Comment (1)
Woman on a Mission Published June 11, 2008
The Gaslamp 15 still bears keeping an eye on. Hopefully this won’t turn into a deathwatch, though I note that the hours of operation have ... More Comment (1)
Bite-Sized Published June 4, 2008
The men behind You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, who would include director Dennis Dugan and producer-writer-star Adam Sandler, must be holding their collective breath ... More Comments (2)
To Have and Have More Published May 28, 2008
The question fomented by the new Indiana Jones film was whether or not, nineteen years after the last one, Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg still ... More Comments (3)
A Second Coming Published May 21, 2008
As we ease into the lazy summer pace of one blockbuster per week, we also settle into the provincial screening schedule of forever lagging a ... More Comment (1)
Mixed Bag Published May 14, 2008
To say the least, Speed Racer is colorful. Color-overflowing, to say a little more. Color-engulfed. The live-action version of the late-Sixties made-in-Japan TV cartoon (which ... More Post a comment
Reds Published May 7, 2008
Call me an ingrate, but I cannot suppress the comment that Landmark Theatres have finally found a slot for Hou Hsiao-hsien only after the Taiwanese ... More Post a comment
Below the Fold Published April 23, 2008
At the close of the Latino film festival last month, I used one festival film in particular (representative of several) as a club to beat ... More Comments (5)
Thing to Ponder Published April 16, 2008
Under the imprimatur of Judd Apatow comes Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a comedy of heartbreak and heartmend. Apatow personally has directed only The 40-Year-Old Virgin and ... More Post a comment
Double-Barrel Published April 9, 2008
Should anyone be suffering symptoms of withdrawal as the “Seen on DVD” column gears down from weekly to monthly, let me share the latest accretions ... More Post a comment
Stones Published March 26, 2008
It takes a bit of cheek to call a film Flawless. Especially a Demi Moore film. In it, she carries that affixed chip on her ... More Comment (1)
North and South Published March 19, 2008
Two Mondays ago I saw two films. In the morning was the advance screening of the American indie, Snow Angels, scheduled to open locally a ... More Comment (1)
Found in Translation Published March 12, 2008
Attention all masochists. Funny Games is not what it sounds like. Not fun and games, not funny ha-ha, not charades and Mad Libs. It is ... More Post a comment
All the King's Women Published March 5, 2008
Extracted from a fat Philippa Gregory novel (the novel, that is, is fat), The Other Boleyn Girl doles out yet another installment in the long-running ... More Comment (1)
Not Much Appetite Published Feb. 27, 2008
Full plate, half-heartedly picked at: Be Kind Rewind. Twisted, tangled, snarled zaniness around a behind-the-times video store, facing foreclosure, in Passaic, N.J. An habitué of ... More Comment (1)
The Way It Was Published Feb. 20, 2008
Scouring the upcoming schedule for Landmark Theatres, from now through May, I find no mention of the current reissue of Alain Resnais’s 1961 Last Year ... More Post a comment
New Names Published Feb. 6, 2008
Thanks to an attractive cast, the creamy cinematography of John Bailey, and the light touch of writer and first-time director Jeff Lowell, Over Her Dead ... More Post a comment
The Show May Go On Published Jan. 30, 2008
By practice and principle, the Oscar nominations are not an occasion for me, as they are for so many in my fraternity, to guess the ... More Comment (1)
Party's Over Published Jan. 23, 2008
No matter how generally annoying a technical innovation or stylistic vogue might be (the telephoto lens, the zoom shot, rack focus, etc.), there will always ... More Comment (1)
Plain and Simple Published Jan. 16, 2008
And now for something completely different. Persepolis, from France and in French, is a cartoon recap of the comic-strip memoir by Marjane Satrapi, covering her ... More Post a comment
Blood and Ghosts Published Jan. 9, 2008
Somehow, somewhere, in my month-long move from Domicile A to Domicile B, my in-the-dark notes and first draft for a critique of There Will Be ... More Post a comment
Wring Out the Old Published Jan. 2, 2008
The best new movie I saw in the last twelve months was Private Fears in Public Places by the now eighty-five-year-old Alain Resnais. I saw ... More Post a comment
Last Call Published Dec. 27, 2007
Charlie Wilson's War. Didactic poli-sci lesson on How the System Works, entertainingly illustrated by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Mike Nichols. The titular war is ... More Post a comment
Reputations at Stake Published Dec. 13, 2007
Underfoot in the Christmas rush: Margot at the Wedding is Noah Baumbach's somewhat disappointing follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, though maybe not so ... More Post a comment
A Place in the Shade Published Dec. 6, 2007
Where do I stand now on the Coen brothers? Or to step back a pace, where did I stand on them before No Country for ... More Post a comment
The Lost Weekends Published Nov. 29, 2007
Some sort of explanation, some sort of excuse, would seem to me (whether or not you) to be demanded for my two-week tardiness in getting ... More Post a comment
These Three Published Nov. 15, 2007
Oh, goody. Redacted, directed and written by Brian De Palma, is a high-def video pseudodocumentary, or if you prefer, humorless mockumentary, about some Marines in ... More Post a comment
Critical Time Published Nov. 8, 2007
Maybe I should have held off a couple of weeks before remarking on "the influx of topical piety into screen dramas." Lions for Lambs, arriving ... More Comment (1)
Big Crooks and Little Published Nov. 1, 2007
Two ways to start a movie with a bang:In American Gangster, Denzel Washington lets us know right off the bat that he's a bad, bad, ... More Post a comment
Let's Get Serious Published Oct. 25, 2007
You can get a rough reading, if not an exact measure, of the unhappiness across the land simply by the upswing in axe-grinding documentaries (Sicko, ... More Post a comment
Thrillers Three Published Oct. 18, 2007
The title figure of Michael Clayton is the designated fixer for the elite Manhattan law firm of Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, touted as a "miracle ... More Post a comment
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