Jerry Bauer
MOVIE REVIEW
My Name Is Andrea (2022)
Andrea Dworkin has always been a divisive figure, within feminism and without. She’s best known for spearheading, alongside Catharine MacKinnon, legal attempts to ban pornography in the 1980s, seeing that as the first step to ensure equality between the sexes. That goal has been comprehensively lost, but her wider point – the threat of sexual violence is a cultural whip used to keep women in line from girlhood, and women should unite to fight back against that by any means necessary – was often lost in the fuss. Pratibha Parmar’s biographical story of Dworkin, as shown at the Tribeca Festival, isn’t quite either a biopic or a documentary. Unfortunately its message is lost in the fuss.
Continue reading “Reappraisal of a Radical” »
SXSW
MOVIE REVIEW
To Leslie (2022)
There's a section in critic James Monaco’s old book “American Film Now” where he goes out on a shaky limb and plots the then-superstars of movie acting on a diagram of distinct personality types. This comes to mind every time Andrea Riseborough acts in a film and is immediately, defiantly, unclassifiable. Michael Morris’s “To Leslie” catches Ms. Riseborough still barreling forward on the momentum of 2020, the year of Prime Video’s series “ZeroZeroZero” for which they might have melted down a few of the TV acting trophies into one statue just for her. “To Leslie,” written by Ryan Binaco, might garner her a few more plaudits, although this is a showier turn with plenty of awardable elbow room: an English actor charging at full-scale West Texas alcoholic destitution.
Continue reading “Unlucky Numbers” »
Jaap Buitendijk/Amazon Studios
MOVIE REVIEW
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021)
Benedict Cumberbatch turns up his eccentricity to 11 in “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” as the titular Victorian era artist whose claim to fame is drawing cats for The Illustrated London News. He was apparently also into electricity and patents, which the film glosses over despite the titular reference – but it shows enough here to remind us of the time Mr. Cumberbatch played Thomas Edison in “The Current War: Director’s Cut.”
Continue reading “Cat’s Cradle” »
SXSW
MOVIE REVIEW
Here Before (2021)
In “Here Before,” Andrea Riseborough plays Laura, grieving the loss of her daughter, Josie (Grace O’Dwyer), who died in a car accident. Laura is inexplicably drawn to Megan (Niamh Dornan), the young girl who has just moved in next door along with her family. In their few interactions, Megan shares some anecdotes suggesting that she is possibly possessed by Josie’s ghost, or so Laura thinks.
Continue reading “Dead Ringer” »
Nicola Dove/Festival du Film Britannique de Dinard
MOVIE REVIEW
The Death of Stalin (2017)
I once asked a Russian colleague why all Russian movies were so depressing; he laughed at me and said, “Look at the history!” I said there must be some amusing Russian movies, and he laughed again and said they were so complicated and culture-specific they were impossible for a foreigner to understand. Five minutes’ rigorous research on Wikipedia informs me that the circumstances of “The Death of Stalin” are broadly historically accurate. It is as yet unclear as to whether that will make me feel better.
Continue reading “The Death of One Man Is a Comedy” »
Atsushi Nishijima/Fox Searchlight Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (2014)
“Birdman” continues Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s shift from gritty realism toward surrealism, first signaled at the end of “Biutiful.” Michael Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, a washed-up actor desperate to shed his signature role in an eponymous ’90s Hollywood superhero franchise by writing, directing and starring in a Raymond Carver adaptation on Broadway. What’s surreal is the fact that Riggan does in fact possess Birdman’s superpowers.
Continue reading “Batshit Crazy” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Oblivion (2013)
David James/Universal Pictures
If you filleted out all the bits drawn from other science-fiction stories and post-apocalypse fables, there wouldn't be much left of "Oblivion" except a hollow shell of pure design theory and a vague hint of new-car smell. But at least its design has some theories worth gazing at. In a plot teeming with so many familiar threads that it eventually short-circuits rather than untangle itself, the vividly antiseptic living-pods and sky-castles and bubble-ships that Joseph Kosinski and his design wizards concoct have a stronger identity than the flesh-and-blood individuals inside them. So too does the soundscape, an aural soup of machine language and data traffic that isn't the only echo on offer of young George Lucas and "THX 1138." Watching "Oblivion" with your fingers in your ears gets more tempting as the film goes on, but you'd miss some of the best bits.
Continue reading “Respect the Architect” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Shadow Dancer (2012)
Rob Hardy/Sundance Film Festival 2012
In the growing portfolio of BBC Films — whose output is not to be sniffed at — "Shadow Dancer" sits comfortably in the same section as siblings such as "Page Eight." It's another polished, festival-friendly film that can easily fit into a second life on television without scraping the sides. It features a fine inwardly directed performance from Andrea Riseborough as a troubled I.R.A. informant in 1990s Belfast, a setting that also allows director James Marsh to return to perhaps the most highly charged example available of the environment he loves to film: insular British terraces of secrets and lies, crime and punishment, friends and enemies. The only thing missing is any actual cinematic impact.
Continue reading “Troubles in Mind” »
The Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival
Film culture is strong in Bristol. The largest city in the south west of England is home to Aardman Animation and several other long-established production houses, and was traditionally an engine of BBC production; John Boorman once headed the Corporation’s mighty Documentary Unit from here. But these are uncertain times. The BBC is retreating to cheaper points of the compass, Aardman are cutting staff numbers, and on the fringes of the Encounters Short Film Festival, Chris Hopewell of Bristol music video producers Collision Films was downbeat about his trade as a traditional starting point for aspiring film makers: “Don’t bother,” he said. “Music video as a tool for film making has fallen by the wayside under the onslaught of YouTube.” The Google Goliath was to be the subject of much debate as the festival progressed.
Continue reading “Always Plenty of Brass to Go Around” »