After a press screening, the film’s local publicist will ask for a reaction. After seeing THE CHOICE, and not wanting to dwell on the film’s myriad faults, I chose to respond by saying that I liked the pelicans. Majestic, improbable creatures that look like something from the Upper Triassic, in one of the film’s many… Read More »
STRANGER BY THE LAKE
There is no getting around the prurient interest that STRANGER BY THE LAKE evokes. Set entirely on the rocky shore of the titular lake, it teems with beautiful young men madly in lust both with each other and with being in a state of nature. It is the stuff of porn flicks and of classical… Read More »
FLOWERS (Loreak)
A sweet melancholia pervades FLOWERS. The juxtaposition of life’s relentless move forward and the cryptic nature of human identity that confounds, delights, and charms work in tandem in this quietly powerful and unconventional love story. Moving on is the theme that ties the two tangential storylines together. In the first, Ane (Nagore Aranburu) learns that… Read More »
13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI
With his trademark bombast, Michael Bay addresses the tragedy of Benghazi with great attention to the details of battle, and only the most superficial of attitudes towards everything else. Based on the book by Mitchell Zuckoff that recounted the 2012 attack by local insurgents on the temporary American embassy and the CIA station in that… Read More »
THE REVENANT
With THE REVENANT, Alejandro González Iñárritu has taken the true story of early 19th-century frontier scout Hugh Glass, and admirably manipulated it into a spiritual journey of savage poetry. Glass’s story, rendered cinematically in the 1970’s by Richard Harris in MAN IN THE WILDERNESS, becomes much more here. Iñárritu uses the bare bones of the… Read More »
QUEEN OF EARTH
When we first see Catherine (Elizabeth Moss), she appears to be melting. Mascara and eyeliner running down her face. Her hair dripping. She is reacting to a breakup. Badly. The camera clings to her distorted face as she reels from the news apparently just delivered by her boyfriend, James (Kentucker Audley) and is by turns… Read More »
CONCUSSION
By comparing the National Football League’s reaction to medical evidence linking repeated head trauma by its players to long-term brain damage and that of the tobacco industry’s reaction to medical evidence linking cancer and cigarette smoking, CONCUSSION cleverly makes its case. If it were just a case for corporate greed, that would be disturbing enough,… Read More »
SON OF SAUL
The first image in SON OF SAUL is a green landscape that is out of focus. There is the sound of someone in distress, and the image of a man walking towards the camera until his impassive face fills the screen and comes into focus. Much else comes into focus in the course of this… Read More »
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
What you really want to know is whether or not J. J. Abrams has worked his magic and saved the Star Wars franchise. The answer is not just yes. But, rather, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is perfection. That is all you really need to know and, while I will not do this film the disservice of lessening… Read More »
EVERY THING WILL BE FINE
Tragedy is complicated. Guilt and anger, acceptance and forgiveness don’t fall into neat pigeonholes in Wim Wender’s EVERY THING WILL BE FINE, a title that is what everyone aspires to in this small but powerful tale of searching for redemption. The central character is Tomas (James Franco), a good writer with a middling career and… Read More »
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