Samuel Goldwyn Films
MOVIE REVIEW
Snakehead (2021)
Among the recent films on immigrants – “Limbo,” “I Carry You With Me,” “El cuartito,” “Chal Mera Putt,” “Flee” etc. – “Snakehead” is the only one that actually hammers home the point that lives are at stake. Perhaps that’s because it is also a gangster flick. In the others, border crossing is merely a process: If you get caught, you get deported; it’s no biggie – the movies don’t even remind you of the dangers awaiting the immigrants back home. “Snakehead,” on the other hand, shows that the peril doesn’t end on arrival. The smugglers, to whom the undocumented are indebted, are far more dreadful than the Border Patrol.
Continue reading “Made in U.S.A.” »
Sami Kuokkanen/Sony Pictures Classics
MOVIE REVIEW
Compartment No. 6 (2022)
Finland’s entry in the Academy Awards’ International Feature Film category, “Compartment No. 6” tells a deliberately heart-warming story, of an extremely unlikely friendship, that’s patronizing and inadvertently offensive.
Continue reading “Fellow Travelers” »
Courtesy photo
MOVIE REVIEW
Chal Mera Putt 3 (2021)
“Chal Mera Putt 3” bears more resemblance to an entry in a blockbuster franchise than to the 2019 Punjabi sleeper hit that spawned it. The latest sequel is a blast, but it feels for the most part like a feature-length epilogue to the previous two films. Every plot in it is tangential.
Continue reading “Future Perfect” »
Nicola Dove/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
MOVIE REVIEW
No Time to Die (2021)
Danny Boyle could easily have been installed as honorary co-monarch of the United Kingdom by a grateful populace in 2012 after his efforts to bolster the national morale via the Olympics opening ceremony, five minutes of which involved him directing Daniel Craig as James Bond for a quick cutaway gag. Since 2012 the United Kingdom has fallen to bits like a clown car and deep-sea divers continue to hunt for the national morale; but James Bond himself has carried right on, fixed on the course set by "Skyfall" that same fateful year, and which reaches its final destination in "No Time to Die." Mr. Boyle was due to reunite with both Mr. Craig and 007 as director of the new film, before being replaced by Cary Fukunaga. It seems a safe bet that disagreements over that destination played a part.
Continue reading “Spies Like Him” »
TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
The Survivor (2021)
Sometimes you have to wonder if there is any story from the Holocaust left untold. And yet the news this week reminds us there are still living Nazis on the run from the justice system; and the photos from the American border of men on horses whipping other men make it bloodily obvious how so many of the choices which led to the Holocaust remain unchanged.
Continue reading “On the Ropes” »
Robert Viglasky/Sony Pictures Classics
MOVIE REVIEW
Mothering Sunday (2021)
Based on Graham Swift’s 2016 novel, “Mothering Sunday” is another absolutely pointless reminiscence about a bygone era of wars, manners and servitude, when well-bred society people (Olivia Colman! Colin Firth!) indeed suffered real loss and tragedy – and not the elective and entirely preventable kind such as Lehman Brothers or Covid-19 – yet remained undeterred to meet for picnics and dinners just to trade barbs, throw hissy fits and be awful.
Continue reading “Emotional Laborer” »
TELEVISION REVIEW | 'HELLBOUND'
TIFF
Only the first three episodes of this 6-part series screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. Dropping on Netflix in November, “Hellbound” is so bloodthirsty it’s impossible to guess who’s going to survive; that is not a complaint. The action, characters and pacing ricochet so wildly there’s no predicting from this first half where the second half will go, which is refreshing, but tricky for a review. With that very large caveat, what we have in “Hellbound” is a creepy, disturbing combination of a police procedural, trial by social media, and the supernatural consequences of murdering angels roaming the earth.
Continue reading “The X-Files” »
Utopia Distribution
MOVIE REVIEW
Vortex (2021)
Gaspar Noé has gotten moodier with age, but “Climax” felt like a soulless artistic exercise. The death of his mother, Nora Murphy, and his own battle with a brain hemorrhage apparently have had a profound effect on his follow-up, “Vortex,” at least thematically. To be quite frank, the screenplay of the new film may be just as threadbare as the last, but at least Mr. Noé here deploys split-screen that sustains the viewers’ attention more successfully than one single continuous shot.
Continue reading “That’s Amore” »
TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
Futura (2021)
Three notable figures among the next generation of Italian filmmakers – Pietro Marcello of “Martin Eden,” Francesco Munzi of “Black Souls” and Alice Rohrwacher of “Happy as Lazzaro” – team up for the documentary “Futura,” about youths across Italy disillusioned by a grim future, lack of economic opportunities, insufficient government investment and disruptions brought about by Covid-19. This filmmaking collaborative doesn’t have ambitious aims to disrupt the status quo with a major stylistic movement like la nouvelle vague or Dogme 95. Rather, here they retreat to the country’s great cinematic tradition and follow in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s footsteps.
Continue reading “The Best of Youth” »
National Geographic Documentary Films
MOVIE REVIEW
The Rescue (2021)
A documentary recounting the 2018 mission to save a Thai soccer team of 12 kids and a coach trapped inside a flooded cave, “The Rescue” easily matches any dramatic action thriller in its ability to rivet viewers. This is no surprise coming from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the filmmaking couple behind the Oscar-winning “Free Solo.”
Continue reading “Duck and Dive” »