The point is made several times in the course of A COMPLETE UNKNOWN that its subject, Bob Dylan is a complete jerk. In one particularly satisfying moment, Joan Baez tosses him out of her room at the fabled Chelsea Hotel calling him just that after he makes a booty call and then withdraws into the… Read More »
LIVE BY NIGHT
LIVE BY NIGHT is so sumptuously photographed that it can almost make up for its shortcomings. Based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, it has weathered its translation by becoming a slight story heinously overblown. It also suffers from too many false endings. So many, in fact, that I can’t vouch… Read More »
SUPER 8
It is always a delight for a film to boast fine performances of subtle nuance and palpable emotion. It is even more delightful when those Oscar-worthy performances come from actors who have not yet attained voting age. Such is the case of SUPER 8, and it is all the more important in a film that… Read More »
MALEFICENT
There is an old saw about movies that goes, “Dont tell, show” and, alas, MALEFICENT has gotten that backwards. wtih an incessant, distracting, and otherwise unhelpful narration. Its an unfortunate irony in that the film seeks to inform us of the other side of the Sleeping Beauty story, that of the evil fairy who cursed a… Read More »