MOVIE REVIEW
The Unborn (2009)
Peter Iovino/Rogue Pictures
Give David S. Goyer some credit: At least the writer-director of “The Unborn” shows some awareness of horror’s cultural legacy beyond “Saw” and “Hostel.” He’s made a film about a dybbuk, which is (as described by Wikipedia) “a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person,” that serves as a primary figure in Eastern European Jewish folklore.
Unfortunately, the movie emergent from that initial conceit owes less to the tradition it evokes then the bland, sanitized aesthetic so familiar to PG-13 Hollywood horror. It’s full of cheap thrills that mostly consist of people popping up out of nowhere and dialogue comprised largely of theological gobbledygook. Sadly, none of it even qualifies as so bad it’s hilarious, save for the image of Gary Oldman as a rabbi, loudly incanting an exorcism in Hebrew.
Continue reading “Where Is Father Marin When You Need Him?” »
Ishika Mohan/Fox Searchlight Pictures
The introductions to these lists – meant to summarize a year at the movies – tend to adopt one of two perspectives: They either bemoan the disappointments of the past 12 months of cinematic fare or they celebrate the proof that, against all odds, great movies still exist. Both seem like obvious ways out, so by way of a preface I’ll simply say that these were my 10 favorite films of the year, and I hope I’ve made a good case for why each meant something special to me.
Continue reading “River Deep, Mountain High, Life Goes On and So Does Death” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Good (2008)
THINKFilm
A radical concept lies at the heart of “Good,” the new film by Vicente Amorim adapted from the C. P. Taylor play. The notion is this: The Nazi party was not comprised entirely of evil men. Some of its members were in fact everyday citizens without any particular animosity towards Jews. At first such an idea proves startling, but upon deeper and more meaningful reflection it becomes apparent just how clearly valid it is.
Continue reading “When Good Men Do Nothing” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Last Chance Harvey (2008)
Overture Films
The critical response to “Last Chance Harvey” seems to have focused primarily on the plot’s adherence to the meet-cute romantic comedy blueprint, a deceptively dismissive way of looking at the picture. To characterize the movie as just another product of the rom-com assembly line is to ignore the depth of feeling Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson bring to their performances. It is also to neglect the wisdom of writer-director Joel Hopkins’s screenplay, the eloquent portrait it develops of the pain of aging alone and the ways the filmmaker illustrates the profound comfort of finding someone when all hope for doing so seems lost.
Continue reading “All He Sees Are Her Sympathetic Eyes” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Valkyrie (2008)
United Artists
Given the avalanche of negative publicity that’s befallen “Valkyrie,” from the German government’s early refusal to let Bryan Singer shoot at his desired locations to the squabbling over the release date and the media’s oppressive scrutinizing of Tom Cruise’s personal life, it feels like the movie’s been in release for years. Getting to finally see it, then, becomes one of those much anticipated Holy Grail moments wherein one gets to ascertain precisely what the great big fuss has been about.
Continue reading “If You’re Going to Try to Kill the King” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Theater of War (2008)
Michael Daniel/The Public Theater
No matter how one feels about epic theater and the application of dialectical materialism to the art world, there’s no mistaking the enormous, lasting imprint Bertolt Brecht left on all performing arts. One could convincingly make the case, for example, that there would have never been a French New Wave without him or an “Angels in America.” So it’s fitting that the hook director John W. Walter applies to “Theater of War,” his documentary about Brecht’s life, times and legacy, is to follow the development of the Public Theater’s recent production of “Mother Courage and Her Children” which played the second half of New York City’s 2006 season of Shakespeare in Central Park.
Continue reading “Raising the Curtain on a Brechtian World” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Doubt (2008)
Andrew Schwartz/Miramax Films
John Patrick Shanley plumbs the depths of the soul in “Doubt,” first a play and now a film that confronts the toxicity of the fallacious belief that one’s convictions should never change, no matter the circumstance. It begins with a sermon delivered by Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in which he says that “doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty” and segues into a compelling morality play surrounding that notion. Although the material worked better onstage – Mr. Shanley is a much better writer than he is film director – the big screen version boasts predictably terrific acting by Mr. Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams and all the power and wisdom of its maker’s unique insights into human nature.
Continue reading “Suffer the Children to Come Unto Me” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Nothing but the Truth (2008)
Yari Film Group
“Nothing but the Truth” melds politics and journalism – the primary dramatic interests of writer-director Rod Lurie – into one nicely compact narrative package. Inspired by the recent Valerie Plame scandal, the film matter-of-factly tells a story of the conflict between journalistic and governmental ethics. To his great credit, Mr. Lurie does so with only a modicum of moralizing and without ever pandering to one side or the other. He has a point of view to be sure, but he never lets it color things to a poisonous extent; and his screenplay unfolds in shades of grey.
Continue reading “Fanning the Plame” »
MOVIE REVIEW
What Doesn't Kill You (2008)
Yari Film Group
Brian Goodman – director and co-writer of “What Doesn’t Kill You” – grew up on the mean streets of South Boston and lived a drug and crime-fueled existence until a prison sentence spurred him to change his life. The steadfast, thorough authenticity that envelops the picture surely derives from that autobiographic connection to the material, and the film is undoubtedly better for it. Besides the verisimilitude that imbues the scenes set in and around the neighborhood with a sort of realist poetry, the movie also serves as a deeply affecting character study, telling the story of a weak man struggling to follow the right path.
Continue reading “Dead End Lives on South End Streets” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Adam Resurrected (2008)
Bleiberg Entertainment
In the long litany of Holocaust movies, there’s never been one remotely like “Adam Resurrected.” A surrealist black comedy set in an asylum for Holocaust survivors located in the middle of Israel’s Negev Desert, the movie forgoes austere formalism for a loose-limbed madcap romp through damaged psychological terrain. Paul Schrader’s film – based on the controversial Yoram Kaniuk novel – unfolds as discordantly as one might expect.
Continue reading “House of Fools” »