Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) notes early on that one of the many architectural treasures of the titular COLUMBUS features elements that are off-center, but are still in harmonious balance. It is, as with so much else in this emotionally explosive but soft-spoken film, an exquisitely realized metaphor. A tale of seeming opposites with surprising and… Read More »
CAFÉ SOCIETY
There is a theological bent to Woody Allen’s CAFÉ SOCIETY. It’s there in the constant bickering between the hero’s parents about whether or not a relative has a Jewish-shaped head. And, furthermore, if he doesn’t, how can he be a proper Jew? Such questions are a Midrash on the actual story, which concerns a young… Read More »
A Philosophical IRRATIONAL MAN
Some of Woody Allen’s best films deal with the problem of absolute ethics in a world that is full of moral ambiguity. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS beings the epitome of his musings on the subject, with lesser, but no less satisfying efforts such as MATCH POINT continuing the dialogue. In IRRATIONAL MAN, Allen has crafted another… Read More »
NED RIFLE Completes the Cycle
Hal Hartley is the master of astringent whimsy and scathingly erudite satire. No better examples of his talents are to be found than HENRY FOOL (1997) and its follow-up, FAY GRIM (2007). Both deal with a character, Henry (Robert John Burke), who may or may not be the devil inserting himself into the desperately dull… Read More »
BLADE TRINITY
There is so very much that is so very irksome about BLADE TRINITY, the third installment in the Blade series and the one with the least reason to exist, that one scarcely knows where to begin. One is tempted to sum it all up with a short sentence warning potential audiences to stay away, but… Read More »
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, like the other films co-concocted by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, BEST IN SHOW, and A MIGHTY WIND, is a wry exercise in improvisation by an intrepid cast working from scenarios and guided only by their imagination and daring. These pieces (Guest deplores the word “mockumentary”) tell the tales of ordinary-seeming folk… Read More »
FAY GRIM
FAY GRIM dances through so many levels that while one viewing is sublime, several are a giddy revelation, each one more so than the last.
THE EYE
THE EYE, released without a press screening, is a tidy enough little supernatural thriller. A soupcon light on the thrills part it may be, but it makes up for it with a nicely rendered eeriness that pays appropriate homage to the Pang Brothers flick of the same name on which it is based. One can… Read More »