Allen Fraser/BFI Flare 2019
MOVIE REVIEW
J. T. LeRoy (2019)
Finally, Kristen Stewart gets a part that makes her happy. Ms. Stewart is notorious for her discomfort with the fame that has been the result of her acting talent – look at the photos of her barely hiding her misery on any red carpet. This feeling is the entire point of her character, Savannah, in “J. T. Leroy,” an inspired-by-true-events story of a famous literary hoax that captivated America last decade. The hoax is revealed right at the start. What the movie explores is why the characters needed to do it.
Continue reading “Fake It Till You Make It” »
MOVIE REVIEW
One Day (2011)
Giles Keyte/Focus Features
By the time “One Day,” a decades-spanning nonromance, gets around to making one of its main characters seem like an actual human, the film’s just about over. That’s a fundamental problem for filmmaker Lone Scherfig, who follows up her overrated “An Education,” and screenwriter David Nicholls, adapting his novel.
For the first two-thirds of the picture, protagonists Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) are ciphers at the whim of a gimmicky narrative, which charts the evolution of their close friendship (and repressed romance) beginning on July 15, 1988 before continuing on the same date each successive year.
Continue reading “School of Continuing Education” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Fifty Dead Men Walking (2009)
Whistler Film Festival
I’m an American who lived in Belfast for a year, and in that year met my husband. The whole of his family lives in Northern Ireland, and our circle of friends in London includes several from Northern Ireland. None of them are "political" – i.e., with direct involvement to paramilitary activity – although some do have family relationships or unwise connections from their youth, which they prefer not to discuss. Most of them recoil in horror at the thought of perpetuating the traditional nationalist-unionist struggle or indeed prejudice of any kind, although some are less enlightened. But regardless of their political outlook, religious belief, class, or personal experience of the Troubles, every last one of them I know from Northern Ireland adheres to the code: “Whatever you say, say nothing.” Everyone, but everyone, hates a grass.
Continue reading “Getting into a World of Troubles” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Crossing Over (2009)
Dale Robinette/The Weinstein Company
“Crossing Over” tosses into one convenient grab bag all the political rhetoric and literary clichés from the recent public debate on immigration. Interspersed with sprawling aerial shots of Los Angeles, the film’s episodic narrative and interconnected characters weave together something akin to a mash-up of recent entries such as “Crash” by Paul Haggis, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” “Under the Same Moon” and “Gran Torino.”
Continue reading “Angelenos Struggle Through Crash Course on Immigration” »