MOVIE REVIEW
The Tourist (2010)
Peter Mountain/Columbia Pictures
These are tough times for froth. When half of mainstream cinema is pastiche already and most of the rest wants its childhood back, what does deliberate frivolity even look like? "The Tourist" has a go at finding out, no thought in its pretty head beyond the visual pleasure of packing two pocket-rockets of screen presence off to Europe and having them stand in front of exotic buildings. Purged of every molecule of guile, it leaves the audience in a mild state of free fall, waiting for Hollywood snark that never arrives.
Continue reading “Venice Plays Itself” »
Edinburgh International Film Festival
Since the Edinburgh International Film Festival's move from August to June, the films and guests available in the early summer slot have fallen nicely for the headline writers, culminating in last year's double whammy of "Antichrist" and "The Hurt Locker." This year fate was less kind, and the absence of true talking points only emphasized that most of the higher profile films were days away from wide release — though some ("Get Low," "Winter's Bone") were excellent. There was more action down in the festival's low-budget laboratories; but there, the trend to instantly dismiss exactly the kind of films that resist instant dismissal was in full effect. With odd vibes at the top and bottom, the result was a festival with a mild identity crisis.
Continue reading “Edinburgh International Film Festival ’10: Notes From the Underground” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Lola (2010)
Swift Productions/Tribeca Film Festival
Two years ago I watched Brillante Mendoza's "Foster Child" at Edinburgh, an experience that could not have been more bracing if the director had turned up and slapped me in person. This year his "Lola" had a similar effect. Mr. Mendoza's welding of documentary staging and local color onto angry agitprop is a style which looks like no style at all — until the bruises start to rise. He is the master of the confrontational whisper.
Continue reading “The Granny Diaries” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Winter's Bone (2010)
Sebastian Mlynarski/Roadside Attractions
Deep in the Ozarks, where it seems betrayal of your neighbor is the worst crime of all and most justice is natural justice, teenager Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) needs to find her missing father before her family and two young siblings are evicted from their home. Determined to discover what's happened to him, Ree starts asking pointed questions of her in-laws and won't take no for an answer.
Continue reading “Mother Courage” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Extra Man (2010)
Magnolia Pictures
New York's Upper East Side is lit up similar to a pinball machine in "The Extra Man," the natural home of chancers, eccentrics, predators and fruitcakes of every flavor. Clearly part of some universe not quite our own, the place exerts a magnetic pull on the loosely wound, the kind of neighborhood where fantasist and occasional gigolo Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline) can roam free without being chased down the street by men in white coats.
Continue reading “Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Get Low (2010)
Sam Emerson/Sony Pictures Classics
Robert Duvall dominates "Get Low" from the off, easing into the part of crusty codger Felix Bush like an old shoe and spiriting the film away from under the noses of several other very fine actors. Looking so weathered that even his whiskers seem exhausted, Mr. Duvall builds Felix from a symphony of emphysemic wheezes, creaking joints, muttered wisdom and withering scorn. Chances are he got paid for it, but that might not have been essential.
Continue reading “Uncouth at a Funeral” »
Helena Smith/
Edinburgh International Film Festival
In an approach sure to tickle the locals, Sylvain Chomet's "The Illusionist" views the misty slopes of the Scottish highlands and the spooky battlements of Edinburgh though the eyes of a visiting Frenchman and finds them all unutterably magical. Born through a lucky intersection of an uncompleted Jacques Tati script and Mr. Chomet's visit to the Scottish capital with "The Triplets of Belleville" (released as "Belleville Rendez-Vous" in Britain) in 2003, his new animation sings with nostalgia, charm and the painful passage of time.
Continue reading “French Animator Conjures Illusions of Auld Reekie” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Four Lions (2010)
2010 Sundance Film Festival
"Four Lions" and its monumentally stupid suicide bombers will be beyond the pale for some; but as with all of Chris Morris's ferocious satires, its faith in man's ability to cock things up is all too plausible. It would be nice to think that groups of angry young men engaged in low-budget terrorism don't ponder strapping bombs onto crows or occasionally point the bazooka backwards. But whom are we kidding?
Continue reading “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Centurion (2010)
Gaia Elkington/Pathe Films
Several centuries after they did their thing, the Ninth Legion of Rome are back in business. Kevin Macdonald's film version of "The Eagle of the Ninth" will be along later, bringing with it Channing Tatum as a Roman centurion. But first, here's Michael Fassbender and a handful of British notables being hacked into small cubes by pissed-off Picts in "Centurion."
The best thing about "Centurion" is that it does not shoot for the moon, happy to be a low-ball gore fest of hacking, and slashing, and guts by the gallon, the kind of film where if someone's helmet comes off, it invariably still has his head inside.
Continue reading “These Romans Are Crazy” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Ghost Writer/The Ghost (2010)
Guy Ferrandis/Summit Entertainment
Political thriller and political reality occupy the same space in "The Ghost Writer" (a k a "The Ghost" in Britain), as Pierce Brosnan's timely portrayal of a British prime minister in exile falls in sync with Roman Polanski's acutely tangled circumstances. Covered in Mr. Polanski's fingerprints, the film lets the director get stuck into his regular theme of small groups stuck in chilly isolation, and stirs in black satire about a misunderstood world figure looking simultaneously noble and a complete dope.
Continue reading “Uneasy Writer” »