Courtesy photo
MOVIE REVIEW
Dunki (2023)
There is no star in Western cinema comparable to Shah Rukh Khan. He is an action hero who can sing and dance; he can laugh at himself (which is even rarer than having a sense of humor); his movies are blatantly political while also being jolly entertainments; and most surprisingly of all, he is willing to be vulnerable on screen. He even cries without a drop of the horrible no-homo attitude so pervasive in American cinema when men express any feelings at all. In “Dunki” he goes even further, in playing a man making a visa-free journey from India to Britain, showing the hellish indignities of the awful trip; and it’s done with a sense of respect that is simply unimaginable in Western cinema. “Dunki” – a slang word meaning the journey illegal immigrants take – is a cheerful yet vicious attack on international borders generally and British immigration policy specifically. The fact that it got a British release is testament to Mr. Khan’s power.
Continue reading “On the Borderline” »
Lorenzo Sisti/Elevation Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Ferrari (2023)
Somehow Michael Mann has made a biopic of Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) that nonironically hits many of the biopic tropes parodied in “Walk Hard” – a parent bitter the wrong kid died, an unhappy marriage, the main enemy of the subject’s success being the subject himself. But in “Ferrari” none of this is funny; and the way in which the movie ends, which is broadly true to life, is so disturbing it’s almost impossible to fathom. Proponents of the philosophies of Ayn Rand are going to love this, which is not really a compliment. We know things will work out for Enzo because the movie exists, as does the Ferrari organization, but it’s unusually disturbing to realize that its story is about how a man achieved his success as the expense of many, many lives.
Continue reading “The Prancing Horse Unbridled” »
Parisa Taghizadeh/Searchlight Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
All of Us Strangers (2023)
It’s human nature to want to be loved, but it is unfortunately also human nature to reject that which seems repulsive to you. This can make life very hard for us homosexuals, who are often rejected by our birth families simply because of who we are. The greatest achievement of Western culture in this critic’s lifetime is seeing gay people be allowed to move from the margins into a blasé part of mainstream society, so average and ordinary that it’s often beneath comment. But that’s not to say this tolerance, which is not the same thing as acceptance, is consistent. And it’s also very important to remember this can’t be applied retrospectively. Older relatives are famous for not being understanding of the younger members of their families regardless of their sexuality, and as an adult you can spend a long time down a rabbit hole wondering if the relatives you loved and lost as a child would have loved you now.
Continue reading “I See Dead People” »
Clay Enos/Netflix
MOVIE REVIEW
Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
Is there anything more terrifying in a film’s title than the words “Part One?” Here it’s a serious threat. “A Child of Fire” is so bad it’s created a new level of awfulness. Thanks to some excellent C.G.I. it’s gorgeous to look at, but so empty of interest that the false beauty is meaningless. In the opening-night public screening this critic attended the only time the audience reacted to anything – anything – was Charlie Hunnam’s appalling Northern Irish accent. It is difficult to understand how a movie so carefully and expertly made could be so devoid of feeling. It’s like 134 minutes of trying to touch a fish by putting your hand to the aquarium glass, only not nearly as much fun.
Continue reading “Bad Moon Uprising” »
Ben King/Pathé Distribution
MOVIE REVIEW
The Three Musketeers: Milady (2023)
In “The Three Musketeers: Milady” there’s a very early shot of Eva Green in chains, a standard of excellence it regrettably never achieves again. This follows an extensive recap of the complex plot of “The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan” which only came out in May. That movie was a better success than this one, in that it was about the merry gang of musketeers, Athos (Vincent Cassel), Aramis (Romain Duris) and Porthos (Pio Marmaï), becoming the best of friends with new recruit D’Artagnan (François Civil) through various complicated intrigues requiring their combined fighting skills. But those adventures are a bath-time book compared to this movie, which contains so many disparate elements our fab four barely have any screen time together. This is a mistake as great as the treatment of Milady (Ms. Green), who here is more weepy damsel in distress than world-class spy.
Continue reading “Commend Me to Satan” »
Courtesy photo
MOVIE REVIEW
Animal (2023)
Even by Bollywood standards, “Animal” is bonkers. Just as an example, our hero Vijay (“Superstar” Ranbir Kapoor) and Geetanjali (Rashmika Mandanna), whom he had just smooth-talked into breaking off with her fiancé at their outdoor engagement celebration after luring her inside with a rendition of their old school anthem, both exit the cockpit of Vijay’s airborne private jet, leaving the plane on autopilot while they repair to the cabin for some sexy time. As they rouse themselves following the afterglow, the jet nearly crashes into a mountaintop. But that’s not all.
Continue reading “Family Feud” »
TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
The End We Start From (2023)
“The End We Start From,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, is a postapocalyptic thriller that begins as catastrophic weather and flooding ravage London and force people to evacuate. Although nature has emerged as a credible villain these days amid growing concerns of global warming, what the story, adapted from Megan Hunter’s novel, does with the premise isn’t exactly unique. In more ways than one, the film comes off like “A Quiet Place Part II” without the scary creatures.
Continue reading “Apocalypse Now” »
DOK Leipzig
MOVIE REVIEW
Tender Metalheads (2023)
It is exceedingly difficult to make a movie about the friendship between two teenage metalheads without the ghosts of Beavis and Butt-Head spoiling things, but a setting of pre-Olympic Barcelona certainly helps. The kids in “Tender Metalheads” use music as an escape, both from their difficult daily lives but also their fears about the future. The political situation of the time is never discussed directly, but the state of the adults – including a neglectful alcoholic mother and a couple scenes set in a shooting gallery (the drug kind) – makes those points indirectly. But despite people often falling short, this extremely endearing film makes it clear how hard everyone is trying to be supportive of each other. “Tender” isn’t in the title for nothing. This personable sweetness despite a gritty setting is unusual in a story about friendship, which makes this movie special indeed.
Continue reading “Precious Metal” »
Martin Maguire
MOVIE REVIEW
That They May Face the Rising Sun (2024)
John McGahern is a titan of Irish literature who is perhaps less well known internationally. This is partially because his early books caused tremendous scandal – they dealt directly with violence against children, defiance of the Catholic church and the patriarchy, topics that Irish society was not prepared to face in the 1960s and 1970s. His last novel, “That They May Face the Rising Sun,” was a calmer book, published in 2002. It’s now been adapted into an excellent movie by Pat Collins, who cowrote the script with Eamon Little, and it stays true to the book’s calm heart while giving space for subtle character acting of the best kind.
Continue reading “Slow Burn” »
Atelier de Production
MOVIE REVIEW
Daaaaaalí! (2024)
Quentin Dupieux is completely insane; and this is meant as an extreme compliment. His movies are utterly unpredictable, to the point where it’s permanently impossible to guess what will happen from one moment to the next, and generally acted in a deadpan style of extreme normality even in the most incongruous or hilarious situations. You can hear the glee of the people who decided to screen at this at the London Film Festival from here. On the surface, “Daaaaaalí!” is about the attempts of a young journalist named Judith (Anaïs Demoustier) to interview the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí (played interchangeably by Edouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Gilles Lellouche, Didier Flamand and Pio Marmaï) for her first documentary film. In reality, it is a surrealistic dreamscape about dreams coming true, priest-killing cowboys, car accidents, cowboy-killing priests and whether a former barista can ever leave her past behind. It is almost indescribably strange and that makes it wonderful.
Continue reading “The Persistence of Documentary” »