Click here for the flashback interview with David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen for EASTERN PROMISES. With CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, David Cronenberg once again presents us with a dystopian future, or is it an alternate present, that is alien and yet, somehow, instantly familiar. It’s not just the machines that mimic the skeletal structures of… Read More »
CAFÉ SOCIETY
There is a theological bent to Woody Allen’s CAFÉ SOCIETY. It’s there in the constant bickering between the hero’s parents about whether or not a relative has a Jewish-shaped head. And, furthermore, if he doesn’t, how can he be a proper Jew? Such questions are a Midrash on the actual story, which concerns a young… Read More »
AMERICAN ULTRA
There is a bold sense of anarchy to AMERICAN ULTRA that is as unrepentant as it is unpredictable.
Julianne Moore is STILL ALICE
It starts with a slip so small, so subtle, that it goes unremarked by everyone present. At the birthday celebration for Alice Howland (Julianne Moore), her rejoinder to a question about the sibling rivalry between her two daughters concerns her relationship with her own sister, now deceased. It is a moment that evokes what is… Read More »
TWILIGHT
TWILIGHT, the film version of Stephenie Meyer’s young adult novel, operates on two levels of fantasy, one traditional that speaks to many of the roiling and contradictory impulses that lurk in the collective subconscious of us all: to dominate, to fit in, to cheat death. It also speaks to the other irresistible impulses, roiling and… Read More »
TWILIGHT SAGA — NEW MOON, THE
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON is the second film version of the wildly popular “Twilight” series of books and is much less interesting than the first one. Where before there was the delight of Bella (Kristen Stewart) discovering that the deep dark secret that the brooding love of her life, Edward (Robert Pattinson) and his… Read More »
THE TWILIGHT SAGA — ECLIPSE
It is as though the TWILIGHT franchise made the calculated but not necessarily unwise decision to cater to its enormous fan base and only to that fan base of overexcited adolescent females for whom hormones are a new experience. This is not a casual fan base. This is a fan base that was delighted to… Read More »
SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNSTMAN
It was certainly an intriguing enough idea, even a bold one, turning the Evil Queen in SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN in the tragic hero of the piece. It smacks of Miltons re-interpretation of Lucifer in Paradise Lost. Alas, a smack is as far as it goes here. Director Rupert Sanders is no Milton, and… Read More »
TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, PART 2, THE
The most persistent question about THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN 2 is why it is that the human character, the one adrift amid all the assorted vampires and werewolves, is the one who is the most engaging. That would be Charlie (Billy Burke), the father of the now undead Bella. In roughly 10 minutes of… Read More »
CATCH THAT KID
When feeding very small children, its important to keep the fare bland so as not to upset the little ones tummies. And thus is it with CATCH THAT KID, a trite and uninspired remake of a Danish blockbuster that features parents in trouble and kids saving the day. The parents are Molly (Jennifer Beals), a… Read More »