There is in Luc Besson’s ANNA fully one-third of a very good movie. That third is a finely drawn satire, cartoonishly violent in its sublimation of female rage as it addresses female exploitation in the modern world using the milieus of espionage and modeling as the metaphor. The other two-thirds is a plodding retread of… Read More »
EARLY MAN
Click here for the KMR interview with director/co-writer Nick Park. The filmmakers at Aardman have carved out for their studio a specific niche among animated films. Theirs is a humor that is sly, unafraid of a pun, and equally fearless in its embrace of the silly for the sake of silliness. It is a universe… Read More »
DUNKIRK
Spinoza once opined that you couldn’t use words to describe God, because by choosing any one or several, you would be eliminating the infinite nature of the deity. That essential inadequacy of words drives much of Christopher Nolan’s stunning film, DUNKIRK. Stunning in many sense of that word. Hence, we don’t learn that Tommy (Fionn… Read More »
LOST IN PARIS
The spirit of Jacques Tati is alive and well in LOST IN PARIS, a charming comedy of coincidences (or is it fate?). As stylized as it is heartwarming, it is an unexpected love story set against the magical backdrop of Paris, with every movement, from a roasted red pepper on the loose, to a love… Read More »
ANGKOR AWAKENS: A PORTRAIT OF CAMBODIA
Robert H. Lieberman’s ANGKOR AWAKENS: A PORTRAIT OF CAMBODIA asks difficult questions and provides answers that are as illuminating as they are troubling. His portrait of Cambodia is refracted through the genocide that was inflicted on it by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, a genocide that reduced the number of doctors in in a once prosperous… Read More »
THE ASSIGNMENT
The subject matter in Walter Hill’s THE ASSIGNMENT will make half the audience cringe in a way that the other half, no matter how empathetic, won’t be able to fully understand. And that’s sly. This brutal exercise in gender studies, masquerading as a biting action-noir fable, is rife with irony and with bald truths designed… Read More »
NERUDA
NERUDA is a rhapsody of juxtaposition and conundrum. Pablo Larraín’s film takes historical episodes from a contentious time in the life of Chile’s beloved poet, fervent Communist, elected senator, and creates a fable of suitably Olympian proportions. And, yes, poetry. This is not, however, the sun-dappled poetry of pastoral idylls nor of chivalric love. And… Read More »
THE RED TURTLE
We are reminded in THE RED TURTLE how superfluous words can be. This animated fable from Studio Ghibli, aimed more at adults than at children, is a thoughtful film about the cycle of life, and a sublime cinematic achievement. A masterpiece, in fact. Starting with a shipwreck, it tells the story of a castaway marooned… Read More »
PATERSON
PATERSON is the quintessence of everything Jim Jarmusch has done before. Playful in approach, deeply philosophical in meaning, it is a lyrical evocation of joy and sorrow as lived by a bus driver/poet during one eventful yet ordinary week in his life. The bus driver (Adam Driver), his route, and the city in which he lives… Read More »
LONG WAY NORTH
LONG WAY NORTH uses deceptively simple animation to tell an epic adventure. At its center is Sasha (Christa Théret), a spirited and determined 15-year-old set on restoring her family’s honor, and the legacy her of her beloved grandfather, Oloukine (Féodor Atkine) an arctic explorer gone missing on his last expedition. It would be a monumental undertaking… Read More »
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