WOLF MAN starts out promisingly enough establishing a theme of generational trauma and the eeriness of the wild wood while neatly exploring the hunter-becoming-the-hunted idiom. Full points to the excellent cinematography that captures the opalescent otherworldliness of the mist-shrouded Oregon wilderness, and a cast that takes the story seriously, it’s just a shame that said… Read More »
EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS — Titus Kaphar Interview
For EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS, his debut narrative feature, renowned artist and MacArthur Fellow Titus Kaphar looked back to the painful, sometimes violent relationship he had with the father, a man struggling with addiction and his own childhood demons. This lyrical, emotionally raw film, populated with Kaphar’s paintings as signs and signals, explores issues of forgiveness, redemption,… Read More »
MAY DECEMBER
The opening credits for MAY DECEMBER play over a melodramatic score of insistent, skittery chords. Those chords will return, but at moments that to us seem banal, yet in the psyche of the December part of the cast, Gracie Yoo, played by the inimitable Julianne Moore, they signal a worldview not so much at odds… Read More »
THE BOYS FROM COUNTY HELL
There is an air of Celtic melancholy running through the, ahem, deadpan humor of THE BOYS FROM COUNTY HELL. That touch elevates the, further ahem, stakes in this horror comedy that takes a few swipes at fraught family relationships, a sinking economy, and Bram Stoker’s relevance when a real vampire resurfaces. The supernatural is almost… Read More »
MADE IN ITALY
A story well told is always worth our attention, and thus it is with MADE IN ITALY, a heart-warming tale of coming to terms with the past in order to face a future without the burden of unresolved grief and lingering complacency. Set for the most part in the spectacular Tuscan countryside, its pacing and… Read More »
HONEY BOY — Alma Har’el Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. The first thing I wanted to talk to Har’el when we spoke on October 10, 2019, was how tender the film. This despite portraying the harrowing, real-life childhood and adult struggles with anger and addiction of the film’s writer and co-star, Shia LeBeouf. Entwining parallel stories of LeBeouf’s… Read More »
LOUDER THAN BOMBS
LOUDER THAN BOMBS begins with a perfect picture of family love. Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) is marveling at his newborn as his wife Amy, (Megan Ketch) looks on beaming. Jonah is beaming, too, and he is aghast that he has forgotten to bring his wife the food she had requested when she discovered that the hospital tray… Read More »
Wade Gasque and Mark Strano are TIGER ORANGE
Wade Gasque and Mark Strano are partners in the film business and in life. When I spoke to them by phone on June 2, 2015, the first question I had was about the sort of trust they have in each other when working on a film that is so personal to Strano. We went on… Read More »
DANNY COLLINS Overcomes
Narratively, DANNY COLLINS commits more than a few faux pas, but there is such warmth to the melancholy of a life discovered to have been wasted, that the winces they produce are worth enduring. Writer/director Dan Fogelman (CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE) may be too quick the play the melodrama card, but I prefer to focus on… Read More »
RUN ALL NIGHT with Liam Neeson
There is a reason that there is a rigid formula for Liam Neeson action films: it has a tendency to hit more than it misses. In RUN ALL NIGHT, the tropes are all present and accounted for with the variations that are permitted within the formula’s rules. Neeson is the everyman with, you will pardon… Read More »