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Matters of Fact
Published Oct. 28, 2009
Are you having enough chances to see documentaries? I myself in the past couple of weeks missed my chances at Fuel and The Way We Get By, the latest environmental and Iraq War documentaries respectively. I ...
All Together Now
Published Oct. 21, 2009
If I had to read it cover to cover before reviewing it, there’s no telling when I would have leave to speak of Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber. Issued on the ...
Something Done
Published Oct. 14, 2009
The standard line on A Serious Man, and I see no reason to deviate from it, is that this is the Coen brothers’ most “personal” work to date. To be sure, the brothers have never been ...
Rush to Judgment Published Oct. 7, 2009
You simply wish to nip over to France for a couple, three weeks, prior to the full-on rush of prize-hunters in the year’s final quarter, ... More Comments (2)
Huff-Puff Published Sept. 9, 2009
The pace holds steady…. The September Issue. R.J. Cutler’s documentary version of The Devil Wears Prada, a revealing inside look at the putting-together of the ... More Comments (25)
Taking Stock Published Sept. 2, 2009
Collision of the end of summer and the start of fall: massive pileup. Quite separate from the seven new movies that opened in our town ... More Comments (4)
The Russians Have Come, The Russians Have Come Published Aug. 26, 2009
The latest offering of “alternative” cinema at the Reading Gaslamp comes up easily to the Landmark caliber. Which, in light of such recent specimens as ... More Post a comment
Under the Wire Published Aug. 19, 2009
August, the customary summer dumping ground, has suddenly yielded the best wide-release mainstream films of the season. And a long, long season it has been: ... More Post a comment
The Brothers Grim Published Aug. 12, 2009
You know very well, if you have been paying attention, what you are going to get from the Dardenne brothers of Belgium, Jean-Pierre and Luc. ... More Comments (2)
Too Many Cooks Published Aug. 5, 2009
As per its own punchy subhead, Julie and Julia is “based on two true stories,” parallel stories of feminist self-determination, set half a century apart, ... More Comments (3)
Art and Magic Published July 22, 2009
Pick of the week, pick of the season to date, is the French Séraphine, a speculative, segmentary biography — twenty years in scope — of ... More Comments (4)
Gay Abandon Published July 15, 2009
Reteaming the star and director of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles respectively, Brüno peddles the same or a similar shtick in a different ... More Comments (2)
Hazardous Duty Published July 8, 2009
Fictitious countdown of the final six weeks in the twelve-month tour of an army bomb squad in Baghdad five years back, The Hurt Locker seems ... More Post a comment
Discrepancies Aside Published June 24, 2009
The news, or at any rate the publicity, that Woody Allen had originally written Whatever Works for Zero Mostel (d. 1977) and had only lately ... More Comments (6)
Nice to Meet Published June 17, 2009
The art-house patron can only take what he gets. Last time out I noted that the Japanese director of Departures, Yojiro Takita, though he has ... More Comments (5)
A Bundle Published June 3, 2009
The surprise winner (as we are all obliged to call it) of this year’s Oscar for foreign film, the Japanese Departures, is somewhat less surprising ... More Comments (3)
Interminable Published May 27, 2009
With two blockbusters in a single week — Terminator Salvation, alias T4, and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian — the summer sequels ... More Post a comment
The Little and the Big Published May 20, 2009
While the mainstream has wound down to its summer speed of one blockbuster per week, the alternative cinema has been spewing out counterprogramming aplenty, some ... More Comments (6)
Onward and Backward Published May 6, 2009
And so begins the summer of ’09: prequel, prequel. The first of these, opening Friday last, is X-Men Origins: Wolverine, entrusted to director Gavin Hood ... More Comment (1)
Tool of the Trade Published April 29, 2009
Report from the front: pressure mounting, resistance weakening, defenses leaking. Try as I might to hold the line, more and more movies in recent months ... More Comments (2)
Limited Play Published April 22, 2009
At last a bone to gnaw on. Not a very meaty bone, only a very scrappy bone, but a bone nonetheless. State of Play, the ... More Post a comment
Last Gasp Published April 15, 2009
For some years now, whenever Rialto Pictures (it usually was) had selected a foreign film for theatrical reissue, I was given to wonder when they’d ... More Comments (2)
Invaded Published April 1, 2009
To feel affection for the grade-Z science-fiction films of the Fifties, especially as their descendants get ever more deluxe, is perfectly natural and no cause ... More Comments (3)
Better Than the Rest Published March 25, 2009
From where I sat, the San Diego Latino Film Festival peaked early. (Probably the whole year did.) The first film I saw, on opening night, ... More Comment (1)
Watch Out Published March 11, 2009
How high can the escalation go? Watchmen is just another step on the stairs, one or two above The Dark Knight, nothing to get worked ... More Comment (1)
Shopping List Published March 4, 2009
It all began with the death in mid-December of Van Johnson. As is my wont, I found something in the Los Angeles Times obituary to ... More Comments (4)
Viva la Restitution Published Feb. 25, 2009
Steven Soderbergh’s atonement for the Ocean’s capers: a four-and-a-half-hour worship service in honor of Che Guevara, conducted in Spanish with English subtitles. Or rather, if ... More Comments (5)
Do Tell Published Feb. 18, 2009
Fresh from the Jewish Film Festival, Avi Nesher’s The Secrets starts a theatrical engagement this Friday at the Reading Gaslamp. (Not to be confused with ... More Comment (1)
Human Enough Published Feb. 11, 2009
As an explanation of romantic incompatibility, the catchphrase title, He’s Just Not That into You, is stunningly unilluminating, no matter which of its six words ... More Comments (3)
Light Load Published Feb. 4, 2009
Although movies had been set in Minnesota before Fargo (notwithstanding its misleading North Dakota title), movies as disparate as The Farmer’s Daughter, The Heartbreak Kid, ... More Comment (1)
Wild and Woolly Published Jan. 28, 2009
The dim month after the year-end Oscar drive — Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Bride Wars, The Unborn, Notorious, My Bloody Valentine, Inkheart, Outlander, Underworld: Rise ... More Comments (31)
Unfree Wheelers Published Jan. 14, 2009
Another few stragglers from the year gone by.... Revolutionary Road comes confusingly too soon after Reservation Road, a mere year apart, although in fairness the ... More Post a comment
The Comeback Clint Published Jan. 7, 2009
This is the interval when the Year That Was in the centers of civilization drags on into the Year That Is in the boondocks. The ... More Comments (6)
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 ... More Comments (19)
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 ... More Post a comment
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 ... More Comment (1)
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 Comment (1)
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 (4)
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 (20)
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 (4)
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 Comment (1)
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 (4)
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)
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