There is an attitude among some filmmakers that children’s films should be anything but sophisticated, rather, they should be simple in theme and execution and excruciating for anyone over the age of five. Not just the flicks for little kids, either, as evidenced by such recent mush as WHAT A GIRL WANTS. And for those… Read More »
SYRIANA
At two different points during SYRIANA, two different men in traditional Arab robes sits on a floor surrounded by two different sets of rapt listeners sitting in a circle. Each explains with perfect conviction how to make the world a better place. One is an eloquent imam in a poverty-stricken madrassa, advocating a return to… Read More »
TSOTSI
With TSOTSI, Gavin Hood has taken the liberty of updating the timeframe of South African writer Athol Fugard’s only novel. In doing so, the politics of apartheid that spurred the story in the book has given way to the tragedy of AIDS. Changing the circumstances of its title character’s orphaning, though, doesn’t affect the nature of… Read More »
Hal Hartley & Parker Posey Revive FAY GRIM
The only room to be found in the shared suite was the cramped bedroom, and so Hartley, Posey, and I stretched out amid my recording equipment on the bed to chat about art, politics, and the effect of eye contact on and off the screen.
Raymond De Felitta Takes Us to CITY ISLAND
For a labor of love like CITY ISLAND, Raymond De Felitta was happy to bide his time, waiting for the right actor, Andy Garcia as his lead, man with a secret Vince Rizzo. When I talked with de Felitta by phone on March 12, 2010, why only a great actor can make bad acting fun,… Read More »
Vincenzo Natali Makes the SPLICE
Vincenzo Natali’s SPLICE is a dark fantasy about what would happen if maverick scientists decided to flout the rules and insert human DNA into a hybrid creature. The result is terrifyng on both a cerebral and an emotional level, with the complex structure of the human psyche, good and bad, making for the real horror of the… Read More »
Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu is BIUTIFUL
Until now Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu has made films that feature multiple story lines of people in crisis. With BIUTIFUL, he follows one story from beginning to end, but loses none of the complexity or richness of his previous work. It also incorporates part of his own experience of feeling a brush with death. When I… Read More »
The CONVICTION of Pamela Grey
The true story behind the film CONVICTION is remarkable and then some. Betty Anne Waters spent 18 years trying to get her brother, Kenny, out of prison for a brutal murder that she was sure he didn’t commit. First she had to get her GED, then her B.A., and finally be admitted to, and graduate from, law… Read More »
James Wan & Leigh Whannell are INSIDIOUS in the Best Sense
James Wan and Leigh Whannell collaborated on the original SAW and with that film proved that they had a keen understanding that a successful horror film is about mood, tone, and using just the right sound effects. In INSIDIOUS, they use just that approach in making a haunted house story into something with fiendishly clever… Read More »
Max Winkler’s Piquant CEREMONY
Max Winkler switched coasts for his feature film debut. Born, raised, and educated in California, he envisioned the ambiance of the East Coast as the perfect setting for the comedy of idealistic love gone wrong that he directed from his own script. The interview reveals a man obsessed with details and with a respect for… Read More »