SPARKLE, the remake of the film of the 1976 film of the same name, was set to be Whitney Houstons acting comeback. She was serious about it, too, having acquired the rights herself, as well as executive producing this incarnation, In it she succeeds in delivering a fine performance that is upstaged by the ferocious… Read More »
MARYAM
Ramin Serrys beautiful and thought-provoking film, MARYAM, tells a very personal story about what its like to suddenly become a stranger in ones own land. Set in 1979 during and just after the Iranian revolutions, East meets West in this most timely of tales and neither gains by what happens next as the drama plays… Read More »
WORDS, THE
THE WORDS is under the impression that is making a profound artistic statement about the creative impulse. Its not. Though handsomely mounted, as they say, with a gifted cast gracing the screen, the film is diffuse, unfocused, and worst of all, dull, even when indulging in melodrama of the most fulsome variety. Using the slick… Read More »
ARBITRAGE
Nicholas Jareckis ARBITRAGE brings up an age-old question. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Only in this case, the world gained is not just a showcase home, a formidable company, and an enviable family life, its also an intangible thing made of high-finance maneuvers with no… Read More »
WON’T BACK DOWN
WONT BACK DOWN is a formula film laid out with the precision of a well-honed lesson plan. With a hard-hitting opinion about the current state of public education, and many opportunities for the two stars of the piece, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis, to go big acting-wise, this has all the hallmarks of the sort… Read More »
HYDE PARK ON HUDSON
HYDE PARK ON HUDSON is an interesting rather than a compelling film. Based on the recently discovered diaries of Daisy Stuckley, it tells the behind-the-scenes tale of her affair with Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Bill Murray), her fourth for fifth cousin depending on how its counted, during the tumultuous summer of 1939. The Great Depression is… Read More »
GANGSTER SQUAD
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but while GANGSTER SQUAD obviously admires Brian De Palmas THE UNTOUCHABLES, and tries very, very hard to be a variation on that classic, it does not have Mr. De Palma directing, nor does it have David Mamet writing the script. What it does have is a series… Read More »
BLESS ME, ULTIMA
Based on the bestseller of the same name by Rudolfo Anaya, BLESS ME, ULTIMA is a profound story told in a deceptively simple way. Deceptive, but curiously suitable for a film about identity, belief, and the nature both good and evil in all their guises. Set in the rural New Mexico of the mid-1940s, this… Read More »
SPRING BREAKERS
What is most interesting about Harmony Korine’s SPRING BREAKERS is the way it turns its imagery on its head while revealing harsh truths about the hollowness of American pop culture. Though the camera revels in shots of decadent excess, it never quite reduces them to mere cheap exploitation. Instead, by the end of this anti-fairy… Read More »
THE GREAT GATSBY
The Jazz Age was a time of excess and self-indulgence across class distinctions that was unprecedented. The scribe of that age, F. Scott Fitzgerald, poured all of that into his writing, along with a generous dollop of angst about what it all meant. His successor, at least as far as depicting that ci-mentioned excess and… Read More »
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