Searchlight Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Empire of Light (2022)
At a certain point, blockbuster filmmakers must get bored. If you have, over the course of your career, demonstrated that you can handle both small budgets and colossal ones, high romance and shooty-action stuff, talky teenagers and morose adults, then what mountains are there left to climb? If you’re Sam Mendes, you direct your own screenplay and call it “Empire of Light.” It’s a love letter to cinema, of course; while he might be winning a bet he made with himself he’s still career-minded enough to keep his pet project in awards consideration. But while he was at it, Mr. Mendes decided to give cinematographer Roger Deakins a few tough marks to hit as well (backlit night fireworks, lamplit rooms at sunrise and the inside of a projectionist’s booth are just three examples). The irritating thing is that Mr. Mendes and Mr. Deakins are so skilled they could have succeeded blindfolded. They are two of current cinema’s greatest auteurs, who know how to stage an image in a way that elevates the plot. “Empire of Light” is so casually gorgeous it’s easy to overlook its flaws.
Continue reading “No Netflix, No Chill” »
François Duhamel/Universal Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
1917 (2019)
Alfred Hitchcock pulled it off in 1948 with “Rope.” Regarding “1917,” Paul Schrader wrote on Facebook: “The ‘one shot film’ is no longer an innovation. It has its own Wikipedia entry. The question is no longer ‘how did they do that shot?’ but ‘why did they do that shot?’ ”
Continue reading “They Shall Not Grow Dull” »
Columbia Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Spectre (2015)
Consistent screen universes are a mixed blessing — as proved by the smell of burnt wiring hanging over the film called “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” — and it might have been better in the long run if James Bond had not caught the history bug. “Spectre” ties Daniel Craig‘s four Bond movies into a final fixed alignment, concluding the chain of events initiated in 2006 when Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) walked into “Casino Royale” and commented on his ass; and also gives the guy yet another layer of familial pain for the ongoing motivational pot. But in the process the film has a mild personality crisis, scared rigid at the prospect of there being any corner of Bond fandom not addressed by the current product and trying to build a machine that could appeal to every single vested interest in existence. A crazy, ambitious, expensive quest. And doomed.
Continue reading “Live. Let Die. Repeat.” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Skyfall (2012)
Francois Duhamel/Columbia Pictures
Recalled by mutual agreement from that unhappy period sorting out Bolivia's tap water in "Quantum of Solace," James Bond spends most of "Skyfall" on more comfortable ground, safely back in a Neverland Britain of slick intelligence, government Jaguars and Pax Britannica. Not that the outside world really gets much of a look in: Sam Mendes's epic-length journey to the center of the spy is mostly concerned with the inside mechanics of MI6 and the inner workings of Bond's head, and especially with the mother figure perched at the hinge of both. The first half of the film practically sighs with relief at the prospect. Who cares, it says, about all the similarities between Bond and the other damaged law-enforcement orphans now wandering the screen? Who needs a niche for its hero other than the one Daniel Craig provides just by turning up in the morning? For a Bond, "Skyfall" is almost unselfconscious, which accounts for many of the striking things that happen in the film's early stages, as well as some of the wayward stuff that turns up later on.
Continue reading “Carry on Spying” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Away We Go (2009)
François Duhamel/Focus Features
“Away We Go,” which Sam Mendes shot while in post-production on “Revolutionary Road,” is the first movie he’s made that openly engages with the vagaries of contemporary life. It’s not a hyper-stylized, heightened museum piece like its predecessor or a whip-smart satire like “American Beauty,” but a film straight from the heart of screenwriters and acclaimed authors Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The movie palpably evokes the feelings, concerns and challenges confronting parents and homeowners seeking to live out the American dream in the 21st century.
Continue reading “Road to Parturition” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Revolutionary Road (2008)
Francois Duhamel/Dreamworks Pictures
On the 11th anniversary of “Titanic,” Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have teamed up again. Yes, our hearts will go on. Their new collaboration, an adaptation of Richard Yates’s novel “Revolutionary Road,” is an appropriately karmic sequel of sorts to the 1997 James Cameron classic: Mr. DiCaprio is Frank, a king-of-the-world-esque cocky wunderkind typewriter salesman. Ms. Winslet’s character April is, um, quite a dish. This time they are married with two children, and discovering that 1950s suburbia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. They seek solace in adultery of the near-far-wherever-you-aren’t variety. Things start looking up when they plan to sail across the Atlantic and escape to the brave new world that is Paris. But upon learning that April is pregnant with yet another child, Frank has second thoughts and opts for a big fat promotion at work instead – understandable really, given what happened on that last cruise. Although the couple never actually embarks this time, one of them sinks while the other one swims all the same.
Continue reading “Once More With That Sinking Feeling” »