It’s a testament to just how good MARY POPPINS RETURNS is that the weakest part of this sequel to the 1964 film is the sequence with Meryl Streep. I hasten to point out the relative nature of the word “weakest”. Like everything else in this practically perfect cinematic exercise, it’s eye-popping and clever as the… Read More »
THE BOOKSHOP
Florence Green, the widowed heroine of THE BOOKSHOP, is a woman of patience, determination, and kindness. Qualities that would stand anyone in good stead, they are enough to get her dream of opening the eponymous entity in this evocative adaptation of the Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel. Whether they will be enough to keep it going in… Read More »
THE PARTY
It begins with Kristen Scott-Thomas, in stark black-and-white, answering her door, hair askew, elegance frayed, eyes wild. She points a handgun right at the camera.
TRANSSIBEREAN
TRANSSIBEREAN hearkens back to those glorious tales of intrigue and adventure that populated film screen in the 30s and 40s. In those days, it was trains that whisked people over vast distances and the close quarters with strangers of all sorts forced together in them was a situation rife with possibilities. Throw in a foreign… Read More »
MATCH POINT
Chris (Johnathan Rhys-Meyers), the focus of Woody Allen’s MATCH POINT is an existential man in the proper Sartrian mold making his way in a world, he will learn, that is ruled by the short of absurdist chaos favored by Jean-Paul’s arch-rival, Camus. So much for free will, bad faith, and making one’s own luck. Forget… Read More »
CHAOS THEORY
CHAOS THEORY is a torpid piece of filmmaking that is at once a fluffy drama and a dreary comedy. Like its hero, Frank (Ryan Reynolds), it’s decided never to make a definite decision and the shambles that results is as predictable as the story of which it is part. The story is told in flashback,… Read More »