MOVIE REVIEW
Howl (2010)
2010 Sundance Film Festival
The Beat Generation should be fertile ground for cinematic harvest, but David Cronenberg's treatment of William S. Burroughs's "Naked Lunch" remains the only worthy adaptation that comes to mind. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, documentarians behind "The Times of Harvey Milk" and "The Celluloid Closet," now try their hands at fashioning Allen Ginsberg's monumental poem "Howl" for the screen. The two had originally conceived the project as a documentary to commemorate the poem's 50th anniversary, but the dearth of available archival footage forced them to take the fiction approach.
Continue reading “The Beat Goes Off” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Youth in Revolt (2010)
Chuy Chávez/Dimension Films
The big-screen-bound “Arrested Development” was in limbo because Michael Cera had declined until recently to reprise the role of George-Michael Bluth that he played in the cult TV series. It’s almost reprehensible, because every movie role Mr. Cera has had since the cancellation of the series has been a variation on that character.
Continue reading “Au revoir, l’enfant terrible” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Up in the Air (2009)
Dale Robinette/Paramount Pictures
As A. O. Scott and perhaps others have presciently observed, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is this decade’s Jerry Maguire. The hero in “Up in the Air” is a self-made American corporate go-getter, whose sole mission in life is career success and the attainment of elite status (here via the rapacious accumulation of frequent flyer miles). Ryan is no stranger to director Jason Reitman, who brought us the soulless spinmeister Nick Naylor in “Thank You for Smoking.” Ryan’s eventual realization of the importance of family and companionship is similarly familiar territory for the man who also helmed “Juno.” This is a movie of few surprises, as our protagonist ultimately achieves self-actualization without compromising his capitalist principles.
Continue reading “Show Me the Mileage” »
Here Media/Regent Releasing
The past decade marked a remarkable transformation in the way we experience movies. It was the decade of the iPod after all. In an attempt to compete with the convenience of home entertainment systems and combat piracy, Hollywood once again embraced the 3-D format. Meanwhile, independent distributors utilized video on demand to reach a broader audience while cutting distribution costs.
Gone is the Miramax business model, and along with it boutique distribution arms such as Fine Line Features, Fox Atomic, Paramount Classics, Paramount Vantage, Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures. Miramax itself, once untouchable, is now on life-support. Several smaller outfits that did not jump on the VoD bandwagon also failed to make it: Cowboy Pictures, New Yorker Films, the Shooting Gallery, THINKFilm and Wellspring.
Continue reading “The Doomed Generation” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Precious: Based on the Novel 'PUSH' by Sapphire (2009)
Lionsgate
Is “Precious” a race picture or a women’s picture? Regardless of what critics have to say, those associated with it seem to cling to the former. Back at Sundance Film Festival, the film scored a distribution deal with Lionsgate, and along with it eyebrow-raising endorsements from Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. Certainly, Ms. Winfrey’s seal of approval could make the case for the film either as a race picture or a women’s picture because of the media tycoon’s mass appeal. But Mr. Perry’s support points to a middle-class black target audience.
Continue reading “Charm School of Hard Knocks” »
MOVIE REVIEW
A Single Man (2009)
Eduard Grau/The Weinstein Company
Fashion designer Tom Ford tries his hand at filmmaking with “A Single Man,” an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s eponymous 1964 novel. Revolving around a middle-aged college English professor who becomes suicidal after a car accident claims his partner’s life, the film in a sense makes an even stronger case for the legalization of gay marriage than did last year’s “Milk.” But whereas Gus Van Sant’s biopic was an impassioned plea for equality, Mr. Ford’s melodrama makes you long for that one true love that seems to elude most mortal souls.
Continue reading “Strong Suit for Gay Marriage” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Everybody's Fine (2009)
Abbot Genser/Miramax Films
It’s a very sad day indeed when Robert De Niro can no longer survive the mean streets. I’m talkin’ ’bout you, old man. Halfway through “Everybody’s Fine,” the career tough guy surrenders to a mugger — as if anyone would buy that for a New York minute. He’s Fredo? I don’t think so.
Continue reading “Cinema Purgatorio” »
Martin Tsai/Critic's Notebook
When “Departures” claimed an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category, it had already hung on for six months in Japanese theaters, and its DVD was on its way to local stores. But its box-office receipts more than doubled after its Oscar triumph, even with the DVD readily available.
“Part of me wishes it wouldn’t take an Academy Award for the film to get that big,” Yojiro Takita, the director, quipped, speaking through an interpreter. “It was a mystery to a lot of people how this film might find an audience, and how to market it to reach that audience.”
Continue reading “Japanese Sleeper Crosses Over to World Acclaim” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Broken Embraces (2009)
Emilio Pereda and Paola Ardizzoni/
Sony Pictures Classics
Since the triumphant “All About My Mother,” Pedro Almodóvar has spent the last 10 years making middlebrow melodramas and noirs. In other words, he hasn’t been making those sexy, hysterical and fun movies that first garnered him attention stateside two decades ago. Then again, having a male character in drag was bold and flamboyant in the 1980s. It’s cliché in 2009 — hello, Ang Lee — and even Mr. Almodóvar knows this.
Continue reading “The Flour of His Secret” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Sweet Rush (2009)
The Film Society of Lincoln Center/
Les Films du Losange
“Katyń” appears to be the masterpiece for which Andrzej Wajda, the Polish auteur and four-time Oscar nominee in the best foreign language film category, spent his entire career preparing to make. Although anything that followed would probably seem trivial next to the 2007 epic about the Katyń massacre, Mr. Wajda’s new film, “Sweet Rush,” is just as spellbinding and personal of a film.
Continue reading “Life Incubates Art” »