Universal Studios
MOVIE REVIEW
The Riot Club (2014)
“The Riot Club” wants to mortify and astonish, presenting a bunch of Oxford University’s finest on an apocalyptic privilege-fueled binge through a country pub which leaves no prole uninsulted, no woman unmistreated and one well-meaning innocent on a saline drip for the crime of social climbing. But the satire is surely old news, certainly for anyone primed by the gloriously awful old photo of David Cameron and pals in the preening outfits of the Bullingdon Club, an image that no copyright lawyer can now stake through the heart — the film recreates a version of it, just in case. Most of Lone Scherfig‘s movie is spent shaking the English establishment so warmly by the throat that it summons up Monty Python’s “Upper-Class Twit of the Year” as much as anything else.
Continue reading “Let England Shake” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Le Week-end (2013)
Nicola Dove/Music Box Films
Director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi’s fourth collaboration, “Le Week-end” continues their exploration of the desires of the olds following “The Mother” and “Venus.” Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan star respectively as Nick and Meg Burrows, who are visiting Paris for the first time since their honeymoon three decades earlier. They exude a certain upper-middle-class façade of intellect and affluence that is instantly recognizable: You’ve seen these archetypes out and about on the Upper West Side, strutting from cabs outside the Lincoln Center on their way to attend important cultural events. The film’s American premiere at the New York Film Festival comes as a shocker to no one.
Continue reading “Midlife in Paris” »