And so with JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX, we return to the tragedy that is Arthur Fleck and his abuse at the hands of a social safety net that failed him. As refracted through the prism of Arthur’s fractured psyche, and that of his alter ego, Joker, the world of Gotham City is a violent place… Read More »
THE CROODS: A NEW AGE
The animation in THE CROODS: A NEW AGE is just as lovely as it was in the original. As we find our cave family going through some changes, though, the story, while lively, has a distinctly mid-century sit-com vibe, and not just because that Partridge Family anthem, “I Think I Love You”, is on repeat… Read More »
NOSTALGIA
Click here for the flashback interview with Mark Pellington for THE LAST WORD. Polynesians have a word for the power with which we imbue inanimate objects. Manu. There are supernatural overtones to the word’s meaning in its original sense, but the power that objects have for the characters in Mark Pellington’s NOSTALGIA, if not strictly… Read More »
HAMLET 2
Where do dreams go to die? That’s the question posed at the beginning of HAMLET 2, a comedy about the triumph of enthusiasm over talent. The answer to that question is Tucson, Arizona, at least for Dana Marschz, a spectacularly untalented actor turned equally untalented drama teacher at a high school there. Driven from a… Read More »
FULL FRONTAL
Some films expand your horizons, some shift your paradigm, some make your spirit soar with the possibilities inherent in the human condition and some are so awful that they make you question the existence of God. That last would apply to the 109 minutes of my life wasted at Steven Soderbergh’s latest, FULL FRONTAL.The question… Read More »
THE INTERPRETER
My friend Daisy, an enthusiastic but discriminating cinema fan, has a way of summing up her movie-going experiences with a succinct take, and so it was as we exited the preview screening of THE INTERPRETER. It almost seemed, she opined, as though something was on the verge of happening. Alas, director Sydney Pollack’s lugubrious pacing… Read More »
CAPOTE
Bennett Miller’s CAPOTE, based on the book by Gerald Clarke, depicts the juncture in the life of Truman Capote (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as he goes from being a respected author of note to the most famous writer in America. Certainly the book that triggered the transformation, “In Cold Blood”, whose writing process is the time… Read More »
HAMLET 2
Where do dreams go to die? That’s the question posed at the beginning of HAMLET 2, a comedy about the triumph of enthusiasm over talent. The answer to that question is Tucson, Arizona, at least for Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), a spectacularly untalented actor turned equally untalented drama teacher at a high school there. Driven… Read More »
CYRUS
A man, a woman, her son. It’s a situation of jealous hostility explored many times, but never more honestly, more painfully, or with bigger laughs than in Jay and Mark Duplass CYRUS. Made with an improvisational style that perfectly evokes the awkward immediacy of three people working through a new relationship that changes all their… Read More »