THE APPRENTICE takes as its focus the relationship between Roy Cohn and the young and hungry Donald Trump of the 1970s. This would be the callow Trump who was stifled by the long shadow cast by his father, Fred (Martin Donovan), and the utter cluelessness about how to play an all too easily rigged system… Read More »
IN THE LAND OF SAINTS AND SINNERS
IN THE LAND OF SAINTS AND SINNERS is a melancholy study of the futility of violence. Set in the war-torn Northern Ireland of 1974, it features a performance by Liam Neeson that is considered, measured, and infinitely eloquent for its silences in a story that eschews politics as it finely observes the consequences of choices,… Read More »
POOR THINGS
Click here to listen to the flashback interview with Emma Stone for THE HELP. POOR THINGS is a glorious gothic fantasy of the grotesque and the macabre rendered with high art and low comedy. Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has found his muse in Emma Stone, who give a performance that blends careful construction with wild abandon.… Read More »
NOTHING COMPARES
It is high time for a re-appraisal of Sinéad O’Connor. Now best remembered with a tinge of distaste for tearing up a picture of the Pope on “Saturday Night Live” in 1992, the singer is the focus of Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary, NOTHING COMPARES. Centering on O’Connor’s precipitous rise to stardom at barely 21 to the… Read More »
THE BOYS FROM COUNTY HELL
There is an air of Celtic melancholy running through the, ahem, deadpan humor of THE BOYS FROM COUNTY HELL. That touch elevates the, further ahem, stakes in this horror comedy that takes a few swipes at fraught family relationships, a sinking economy, and Bram Stoker’s relevance when a real vampire resurfaces. The supernatural is almost… Read More »
FRENCH EXIT
FRENCH EXIT is a deft comedy that is low key but also pointed and deeply affecting, despite concerning itself with the trials and tribulations of a woman who has raised superficiality and self-absorption to a high art.
WILD MOUNTAIN THYME
John Patrick Shanley’s WILD MOUNTAIN THYME, based on his play Outside Mulligan, is a charmer of an Irish muddle. Committed in its gentle eccentricity, it essays to find the mythic in the quotidien and darn near pulls it off. At least sly humor abounds as the determined Rosemary (Emily Blunt) pines for Anthony (Jamie Dornan)… Read More »
MAZE
There is a distinct strain of melancholy nihilism throughout Stephen Burke’s MAZE. Based on the 1983 prison break by 38 inmates of the eponymous maximum security prison in Norther Ireland, it mixes the suspense of plotting an escape dependant upon split-second timing from an inescapable prison with the psychological games the prisoners play with the… Read More »
THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS
In an era when Christmas, or at the least the merchandising for it, begins sometime in late August, there is a certain charm in THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS, which looks back to a time when it barely registered as a blip on the cultural radar. And the the to origins of the story that… Read More »
PILGRIMAGE
PILGRIMAGE tells a dour tale of faith and fanaticism. Set in 13th-century Ireland, it blends mysticism with realpolitik in a time and place so distant from ours that a subtext of imperialism might be almost too subtle, while the vicious commonplaces of summary justice, revenge, and casual violence are all too vivid A prologue set… Read More »