MOVIE REVIEW
Lourdes (2009)
Palisades Tartan
History has proven Catholicism to be the most cinematic of the Christian denominations. Drawing on a wealth of ornate iconography and millennia of artistic traditions/ceremonial pomp and circumstance, its practice incorporates sights, symbols and colors of remarkable visual beauty. There was, therefore, arresting potential for Jessica Hausner’s very Catholic new film “Lourdes.”
It depicts a mass pilgrimage to the mystical town in the south of France, said to be the site of repeated apparitions of the Virgin Mary. It centers on a busload of patients and workers from a Catholic hospital, who arrive in search of various forms of healing. Principal among them is Christine (Sylvie Testud), a nearly-mute paraplegic, content to look on at the righteous blur that surrounds her.
Continue reading “Pat Answer to a Prayer” »
TELEVISION REVIEW | 'THE UNLOVED'
Channel 4
Lucy (Molly Windsor) doesn’t say much, because she is too busy watching. She has learned to keep her own counsel, to follow closely what is happening around her and to pay attention to all the clues she can pick up. She lives with her father (Robert Carlyle), who clearly loves her but who equally clearly isn’t a good dad. When she comes back empty-handed from an errand, he beats her with his belt. We hear the beating, but don’t see it — but we do see Lucy lying in a stairwell for a night and a day, unable to move. Once she recovers, Lucy has the composure to go to school, sit through classes and eat a hot lunch before telling her teacher what has happened.
Continue reading “Not a Care in the World” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Terribly Happy (2008)
Oscilloscope Laboratories
Put the Coen brothers in Denmark, and they might come out with a film similar to “Terribly Happy.” An offbeat suspense thriller involving a corruptible policeman, a creepy insular town and a giant metaphoric bog, it’s made in precisely the sort of genre busting mode the brothers have perfected in everything from “Blood Simple” to “No Country for Old Men.”
Continue reading “A Bad Case of the Blood Simples” »
MOVIE REVIEW
From Paris With Love (2010)
Rico Torres/Lionsgate
John Travolta descends upon “From Paris With Love” with gale force, sweeping up all the innocuous Luc Besson action-flick chop-shop proceedings in a torrent of flashy overacting. He’s the primary reason to spend time with what is otherwise a standard, thoughtless shoot ’em up. The actor has done the crazy rogue shtick before, but never with quite the mischievous gleam brought to the character of Charlie Wax here.
Continue reading “City of Fights” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Father of My Children (2009)
The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival
Mia Hansen-Løve’s second feature picked up the Special Jury Prize in the Un certain regard category at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, a prize that recognizes exceptional young filmmakers. With “The Father of My Children,” Ms. Hansen-Løve certainly and confidently asserts herself as one such talent. Inspired by an encounter with legendary French film producer Humbert Balsan, Ms. Hansen-Løve delivers a touching, incredibly personal familial portrait that deals with artistic drive, pride, the inherent fear of failure and its tragic consequences.
Continue reading “Art Debilitates Life” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Off and Running (2010)
First Run Features
Even by the standards of transracial modern America, Avery Klein-Cloud has had an unusual upbringing. The African-American, Texas-born adopted daughter of two Brooklyn-dwelling Jewish lesbians, they and her brothers Rafi (biracial) and Zay-Zay (Korean born) call their family the “United Nations.” With so many discordant background elements at play — such a clear sense of belonging in one way while being forever intrinsically removed in another — it comes as no surprise when teenage Avery begins an investigation of her biological background.
Continue reading “The Born Identity Crisis” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Edge of Darkness (2010)
Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Bros. Pictures
Revenge tragedies should be hot-blooded and cold-hearted, but "Edge of Darkness" is blanded out into something just vaguely mild. It has the curiosity value of a returning Mel Gibson — now a very strange screen presence indeed — as Boston cop Thomas Craven on the trail of his daughter's killer, but that can't hide the fact that it's a weak thriller which forgets to do much thrilling.
Continue reading “Cashing a Payback” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Horses (2010)
DCD Media
In 2004, Liz Mermin directed “The Beauty Academy of Kabul,” in which she followed a few fearless American hairdressers who decided to empower Afghan women through cosmetology. At one point, one of the students was asked about the future for women in her country now that the Taliban were not in charge. The student replied something along the lines that although she had a lovely husband herself, it was pointless to think that women would ever have equality with men since they would never allow it. The westerners fell into a stunned, depressed silence, and the eager-to-please student asked if she had said the wrong thing.
After that experience, it’s no surprise that Ms. Mermin has in her new film turned her back on people almost entirely. Filmed over a year at an Irish racing stable, “Horses” follows the fortunes of three horses belonging to a trainer named Paul Nolan, and explicitly identifies itself as a documentary where the animals are the stars. For obvious reasons, this doesn’t quite work.
Continue reading “Courses for Horses” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Creation (2009)
Liam Daniel/Newmarket Films
“Creation” achieves the impressive feat of reducing Charles Darwin and his work to fodder for stiff-lipped, cumbersome dramatics. It’s amazing that a story of the man behind the most revolutionary idea in human history could feel so flat and uninspired. But director Jon Amiel achieves the seemingly impossible by hewing to a stock chamber-piece approach that contradicts the wholly modern, innovative way his subject lived his life.
Continue reading “A Beautiful Mind Boggles” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Extraordinary Measures (2010)
CBS Films
“Extraordinary Measures” is not so much directed as processed, hewing closely to the cut-and-dry inspirational template. It’s a paste job down to the tiniest fibers of its being, with a soundtrack that contains Eric Clapton’s “Change the World” and lots of stock preaching about making miracles happen. The narrative effectively blends human interest with an engaging insider’s look at the biotech bureaucracy, but laziness is the operative mode here.
Continue reading “Clear and Present Disease” »