There is a reason Homer’s ODYSSEY has lasted for so many millennia. Its themes, its imagery, its all-too human portraits of heroes and deities who are less than perfect have sparked imagination and found purchase with whatever the zeitgeist is at any given time. And so it is with Christopher Nolan’s adaptation. It is a… Read More »
DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS
DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS may be another proof of the universe’s entropy. You know, the rule that posits everything is slowly devolving into a state of disarray and incoherence. Or something along those lines. This effort by Ethan Coen certainly shows flashes of the oddball genius of the films he made with his brother, Joel, but the… Read More »
OPPENHEIMER
Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER demands that we consider the father of the atomic bomb’s life in context, the which he does with stunning clarity considering the paradoxes the film considers. Like the quantum world revealed by the new physics that Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) brought to the United States between the world wars, things can work even… Read More »
DOWNSIZING
DOWNSIZING is a film that cries out to be admired. Pondered. Parsed. Philosophical propositions and social commentary flit by in a mad whirl of arch observation and deadpan dea as we are invited to consider a veritable cornucopia of topics, all eminently worthy of examination. The class struggle and the human propensity for prejudice; the… Read More »
SUBURBICON
Chekov’s three sisters had their dream of a perfect life in Moscow. The increasingly desperate and frazzled denizens of SUBURBICON have Aruba, a place where the food is exotic, the golf is for couples, and the long arm of the law cannot reach them. Alas, this deliciously stylized evocation of the dark side of the… Read More »
THE GREAT WALL
THE GREAT WALL is a big, blustery action-adventure flick in the classic mold, but with one exception. There’s no damsel in distress here. Instead, the winsome lady of the piece is a warrior with nerves of steel and no fear of heights. Kudos there. Not everywhere, but definitely there. Set somewhere in the 11th century,… Read More »
JASON BOURNE
I’m put in mind of tea leaves. Good quality tea leaves that have rendered such a wonderful cup of tea that you wonder if maybe, just maybe, there’s enough of their essential, unique quality left to take one more infusion to make a cup as good as that first one. And so it is with… Read More »
HOWARD ZINN: YOU CAN’T BE NEUTRAL ON A MOVING TRAIN
HOWARD ZINN: YOU CAN’T BE NEUTRAL ON A MOVING TRAIN is a robust telling of the historian’s life and times that does the spirit of the man credit. First Run Feature has re-released the 2004 documentary with a plethora of bonus features, and were smart enough to realize that the only thing better than this… Read More »
THE MARTIAN
THE MARTIAN asks some tough metaphysical questions as it answers some thorny scientific problems with nifty solutions. What’s worth living for? What’s worth dying for? And why should giving up never be an option? The premise is daunting. Mark Watney (Matt Damon), ace botanist and member of the Ares 3 exploratory expedition to Mars in… Read More »
INFORMANT!, THE
There is something poignantly human in the way that everyone in Steven Soderberghs INFORMANT!, comedy of corporate greed and earnest FBI investigation, so completely believes in what they want to see going right in front of their eyes. The kicker is that the prime mover in all of this, Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), is so… Read More »