Taylor Hackford is not originally from the south, but he has the soul of a southerner when it comes to storytelling. In RAY, he uses it to blend past and present in ways that don’t just show how the former affects the latter, but how in the emotional landscape of the title character, the legendary… Read More »
DOWNFALL (DER UNTERGANG)
The story of DOWNFALL, Hitler?s last days in his Berlin bunker before committing suicide when his Third Reich was at an end has been told before in countless versions. What sets this film apart is the way it incorporates the oral history of Hitler?s secretary, Traudl Junge (played like an innocent lamb to the slaughter… Read More »
MANA — BEYOND BELIEF
The concept at the heart of MANA: BEYOND BELIEF is defined at the outset of film. A Maori explains the power of objects, both inherent and that with which people imbue them. From the cherry blossoms of Japan that draw avid viewers and drunken, all-night partying to the mystique of a freakishly large tuna. It… Read More »
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS (La March de L’Empereur)
It’s not that Luc Jacquet’s documentary, MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, tells the penguin lover in all of us anything about them that we didn’t already know. It’s that he frames it in such a way that the audience is allowed to experience the emotional life of these birds in a way that is compelling, intimate,… Read More »
NIGHT WATCH (NOCHNOY DOZOR)
Check out the contests and giveaways section for a chance to win a poster from NIGHT WATCH!The Russian import, NIGHT WATCH, has the right touch of otherworldliness. In the stylish visuals and the snazzy effects there is the sense of reality reconfigured into a place where good and evil aren’t so much philosophical premises as… Read More »
DISTRICT B13
There will be no film cooler than DISTRICT B13 released between now and Labor Day, and by the end of this particular season, I would not be surprised if it doesn’t turn out to be THE coolest film of the summer. It starts at a fever pitch of rushing adrenalin and from there goes into… Read More »
THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT
After the brouhaha of Whitewater, Monica, and the impeachment had subsided with the end of Bill Clinton’s eight years as president, authors Joe Conason and Gene Lyons revisited the allegations in a dense, fascinating book, ‘The Hunting of the President”, that in four hundred or so pages dissected with stunning clarity just how vast and… Read More »
VANITY FAIR
Mira Nair’s telling of Thackery’s classic, VANITY FAIR, is a lush, sprawling, sensual film that totters unevenly under the weight of its own ambition. It’s an apt metaphor considering that its heroine, Becky Sharpe, has the same Achilles Heel. Blithely skipping through so many decades of necessity leads to a feeling of sketchiness in some… Read More »
SHAUN OF THE DEAD
SHAUN OF THE DEAD is a crisp and lethally funny blend of B-movie monsters and those “kitchen sink” dramas from Britain’s theatrical renaissance of the late 50s and early 60s. Our angry young man is the Shaun (Simon Pegg) of the title, a feckless drone with a dead-end job that is a daily, even hourly… Read More »
LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
When I heard that Jim Carrey would be starring in A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, based on the first three installments of the deliciously arch and ironic series of the same name by Lemony Snicket, my heart sank. Obviously, I thought, it was doomed to be a vehicle for Carreys brand of broad physical humor… Read More »