Neon
MOVIE REVIEW
Infinity Pool (2023)
Brandon Cronenberg's previous film, "Possessor," had moments of gore and violence, while manipulating you mostly through drastic quiet unease about mind and body; a film in which Andrea Riseborough calmly stared at you while you were staring at her. "Infinity Pool" barges in and breaks the window and makes a mess on the floor; a film in which Mia Goth screams at you about your unease until you decide that maybe you don't feel so bad. Emboldened, reasonably enough, by the last film's success, Mr. Cronenberg now attacks on multiple fronts. In "Infinity Pool" there are clones and doubles and sleight of hand about which is which. There are rich white people going off the deep end into drug-fuelled violence in a country offensively poorer than Los Angeles. There's a bag of storytelling tactics, harsh editing and strobe lighting and subliminal glimpses of genitalia, the tool kit that gets called experimental – but really isn't because it isn't chasing a state of mind, just an instant of disorientation, not the same thing. All these flammable items go into the test tube, without catching fire.
Continue reading “Double or Quits” »
Edu Grau/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Passing (2021)
The four main actors are some of the best-looking currently working, more importantly with the acting skill to render dialogue basically unnecessary, and yet “Passing” is a bore. It should have been a tense domestic horror, since the plot revolves around a life-threatening, decades-long lie. On a sweltering day in Irene (Tessa Thompson) escapes the New York City heat in a cool hotel lobby where she spots Claire (Ruth Negga), whom she hasn’t seen since high school. Claire brings her up to her room, where they order a teapot of whiskey – this is during Prohibition – and start chatting, until Claire’s husband John (Alexander Skarsgård) interrupts. Three things become immediately clear: Claire is living as a white woman, the proudly racist John has no idea that his wife is black, and while Irene doesn’t normally pass for white herself, she can should she so choose.
Continue reading “Under the Skin” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Battleship (2012)
ILM/Universal Pictures
The most interesting aspect of Peter Berg's last couple of features was always the involvement of Michael Mann; and Mr. Berg's inclination to take his producer's blue-collar urban-myth-making and process it into something less buttoned-down. But "Battleship" swings in other directions, borrowing instead from the Tony Scott book of naval ballistics and immediately summoning up instead the spirit of Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer circa 1986. It also has the gall, the nerve, the stainless-steel balls required to include a version of the Hasbro pastime's actual gameplay into its plot as a military strategy — for which, frankly, hats off.
Continue reading “Yes, You Can Put Your Mind at Ease” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Melancholia (2011)
Christian Geisnaes/Magnolia Pictures
The Cannes Film Festival this year bestowed on Lars von Trier the rare distinction of being persona non grata after he expressed sympathy for Adolf Hitler. While his inflammatory Nazi talk was indeed inexcusable, Mr. von Trier was probably right drawing parallels between himself and a dictator reviled by the world. But unlike Hitler, Mr. von Trier does deserve our sympathies. After being taken to task by critics for systematically subjecting female protagonists to escalating cruelty throughout the “Golden Heart” and as-yet incomplete “U.S.A.: Land of Opportunities” trilogies, Mr. von Trier purposely did a 180 with “Antichrist,” in which the woman is the tormentor. But his critics only grew more vocal.
Continue reading “The Loss of It All” »