In a move as audacious as it is disastrous, Steve Soderbergh has decided to push the edges of what filmmaking can be and created in SOLARIS not so much a motion picture as a still life. One that is more sleep-inducing than a warm glass of milk and a bottle of Seconal. It is remarkable… Read More »
GRAVITY
Alfonso Cuarons GRAVITY is a masterpiece of both action and psychology. It is a film that sends its audience home with many things to ponder, and many lessons learned. It also sends that audience home with a whole new appreciation of air, and Im not sure thats an accident. So abundant here on the surface… Read More »
THE MONUMENTS MEN
Its easy to be seduced by THE MONUMENT MENs swagger. Directed and co-written by co-star George Clooney, it is as much a tribute to the golden age of Hollywood filmmaking as it is to the brave men who thought that art and culture was worth defending with their lives. It is manipulative, it is at… Read More »
INTOLERABLE CRUELTY
When the Coen Brothers get it right, there are no better filmmakers going, and with INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, they are at the top of their game. With an irreverent touch, they spin a tale of true love that includes all the melodrama, farce, and heartbreak that such a condition is oft wont to engender while still… Read More »
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK
In a lesser film about Edward R. Murrow and the way he used television to bring down Joseph McCarthy, there would have been the obligatory unburdening scene with his wife. He would articulate the risks involved in what he was undertaking personally, professionally, and financially, have an emotional breakdown of some sort, and Mrs. Murrow… 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 »
OCEAN’S 13
OCEAN’S 13 is pure entertainment. As bright and shiny as perfectly restored vintage neon, it’s a throwback to an era when films could be fun without being stupid. When they could have a heart without being a cliché, and when guys who were just too cool for school ruled. There’s a caper, of course, intricately… Read More »
MICHAEL CLAYTON
MICHAEL CLAYTON begins with a monologue by Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), a brilliant but unhinged litigator who has spent too much of his life defending the indefensible. In it, beautifully encapsulated, is the heart of the film, which is to say, that it’s only a madman who has the clarity of vision to do the… Read More »
LEATHERHEADS
There are some films that set you to pondering. What is the meaning of life? What is my role in the human comedy? The question that LEATHERHEADS inspires is much less esoteric. During the bumpy homage to IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, and MEET JOHN DOE, among others, I found myself wondering what… Read More »