MOVIE REVIEW
Everlasting Moments (2008)
Nille Leander/IFC Films
Sweden apparently hasn’t always been the expedient society in which particleboard furniture and fast fashion are ubiquitous. It’s unfathomable that a century ago – before widespread electricity and the enlightenment by such luminaries as Ingmar Bergman and ABBA – the country was a white-trash wasteland inhabited by deadbeat, wife-beating drunkards who treated their impoverished households as baby farms and kept themselves busy during workers’ strikes by planting bombs and shacking up with mistresses. At the very least this was the case for Sigfrid (Mikael Persbrandt), the greasy, mustachioed husband of protagonist Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen) in Jan Troell’s Bergmanesque “Everlasting Moments.”
Continue reading “Restoring a Tarnished Life” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Crossing Over (2009)
Dale Robinette/The Weinstein Company
“Crossing Over” tosses into one convenient grab bag all the political rhetoric and literary clichés from the recent public debate on immigration. Interspersed with sprawling aerial shots of Los Angeles, the film’s episodic narrative and interconnected characters weave together something akin to a mash-up of recent entries such as “Crash” by Paul Haggis, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” “Under the Same Moon” and “Gran Torino.”
Continue reading “Angelenos Struggle Through Crash Course on Immigration” »
Martin Tsai/Critic's Notebook
The sight of people stripping down to their underwear between the racks to try on clothes rarely raises an eyebrow at the Barneys Warehouse Sale, or most any sample sale for that matter. Except for rookie loss-prevention personnel, everyone there knows the drill: no fitting rooms, no exchanges, no returns, and no place for modesty when there are bargains to be seized.
Continue reading “It’s a Man’s World, but Women Love to Shop in It” »
ヤッターマン製作委員会/
Tatsunoko/Nikkatsu/Shochiku
The much-ballyhooed world premiere of Takashi Miike’s designated Japanese box-office hitter, “Yatterman,” drew a crowd in New York City that well exceeded the capacity of the Directors Guild of America Theater, and many found themselves literally left out in the cold. The inside of the house was a study in contrasts. The majority represented Mr. Miike’s blood-thirsty, guts-hungry cult following, whose conversion likely occurred after Film Forum imported the monumental mindfuck that was “Audition” in 2001. Also present in remarkable numbers and even more impressive vocal volume were screaming teenage girls with homemade signs who turned out for Sho Sakurai, the star of “Yatterman” who is also a member of Japan’s chart-topping boy band Arashi.
Continue reading “Speed Racing on the Cultural Silk Road” »
Stephen Berkman/Roadside Attractions
The annual ritual of best-of lists can seem arbitrary, obsessive-compulsive or even narcissistic. When any aspiring critic can set up a blog or a Flixter account to get his or her two cents in, do readers even care if a critic has credentials or expertise? Do people even read movie reviews anymore, when they’ve become reliant on listicles or quotables that appear in ad copies and on Rottentomatoes? As publications around the country rush to meet the bottom line to appease shareholders, some of the most brilliant and erudite voices have become orphaned in the process. Those who are serious about a career in film criticism have probably all paused to ask whether this is still honest work or just a frivolous pursuit.
Continue reading “Before You Forget” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Merrick Morton/Paramount Pictures
Like Danny Boyle, David Fincher is a filmmaker whose stylish sensibility almost always leaves moviegoers cold. But also like Mr. Boyle, Mr. Fincher has this year stumbled upon a movie with a heart and excelled. Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” would most likely have been a horrific, vomit-inducing train wreck in the hands of a Steven Spielberg or a Ron Howard. The aging-backward premise notwithstanding, the film is basically “Forrest Gump” meets “Legends of the Fall” meets “Meet Joe Black,” complete with Gumpian historical anecdotes (Teddy Roosevelt instead of JFK this time!) courtesy of “Gump” screenwriter Eric Roth. Thank goodness Mr. Fincher has the clinical precision of a music video director, and here counterbalances the otherwise go-for-broke sappiness of all the separations and deaths in the “Benjamin Button” screenplay.
Continue reading “A Box of Chocolates Is Like Life” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Revolutionary Road (2008)
Francois Duhamel/Dreamworks Pictures
On the 11th anniversary of “Titanic,” Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have teamed up again. Yes, our hearts will go on. Their new collaboration, an adaptation of Richard Yates’s novel “Revolutionary Road,” is an appropriately karmic sequel of sorts to the 1997 James Cameron classic: Mr. DiCaprio is Frank, a king-of-the-world-esque cocky wunderkind typewriter salesman. Ms. Winslet’s character April is, um, quite a dish. This time they are married with two children, and discovering that 1950s suburbia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. They seek solace in adultery of the near-far-wherever-you-aren’t variety. Things start looking up when they plan to sail across the Atlantic and escape to the brave new world that is Paris. But upon learning that April is pregnant with yet another child, Frank has second thoughts and opts for a big fat promotion at work instead – understandable really, given what happened on that last cruise. Although the couple never actually embarks this time, one of them sinks while the other one swims all the same.
Continue reading “Once More With That Sinking Feeling” »
Flight Master/Pony Canyon
Was it like this in the 1940s with Sinatra and all the screaming bobby-soxers? Or in the late 1960s when four mop-haired Liverpudlians laid waste to the American pop charts? This time it began across the Pacific with a novelty act and a guilty-pleasure song. But in the ensuing eight months, the J-pop boy band Shuchishin has repeatedly recaptured that lightening in its bottle. Maybe its marginal talent is comparable to the Spice Girls at best, but Shuchishin has miraculously churned out one classic after another in such a short time span that it unequivocally qualifies as one of the best pop vocal acts ever, maybe the very best.
Continue reading “‘Yowamushi Santa’ Is Coming to Town” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Wendy and Lucy (2008)
Simon Max Hill/Oscilloscope Laboratories
“Wendy and Lucy” is the simple story of a girl and her puppy, but it may well be the best girl-and-pup movie ever made. Michelle Williams stars as Wendy, a drifter en route to Alaska whose junkyard car gives out in the middle of Oregon. She manages to get arrested for shoplifting from a grocery store, and upon her release she can no longer locate her pet dog and traveling companion, Lucy. For the remainder of the film, Wendy wanders through small towns and the Oregonian wilderness, trekking across parking lots and railroad tracks in hopes of finding Lucy.
Continue reading “And They Called It Puppy Love” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Gomorrah (2008)
Mario Spada/IFC Films
Based on journalist Roberto Saviano’s 2006 bestseller about the Napolitano Mafia, “Gomorrah” is a sprawling Altmanesque epic about how organized crime has thoroughly contaminated every facet of life in Naples, Italy. Aside from having a vice grip on the local drug supply, the Camorra has also strong-armed its way into contracts for the manufacture of designer fashions and the illegal disposal of toxic waste. Two warring gangs have suddenly turned even child playmates into sworn enemies while everyone angles for the best position to make a killing or to simply avoid getting killed. Mr. Saviano’s account is so incendiary that he is now on the mob hit list and receives a permanent police escort.
Continue reading “Living (and Dying) in the Gangster’s Paradise” »