MONA LISA SMILE is what can diplomatically be called a safe film. Its full of lush cinematography that evokes a cloying sense of nostalgia for the early 1950s where the action takes place. There are the adorable outfits the almost all-girl cast wears. The soundtrack is full of pop standards calculated to set the mood… Read More »
HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG
I’ve never read the bestselling book, House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III, but I admire the concept of it infinitely more than I admire the film of the same name that was made from it. This is a poignant tale about what the idea of home means to people, how they will… Read More »
MONSTER
Patty Jenkins’ film, MONSTER, is brilliant, breathtaking, and completely unforgettable. Those are words that are sorely overused in the land of crit-speak, and yet there are few films that are so very deserving of them. Jenkins biographical story of Aileen Wournos, convicted serial killer, has all the earmarks of a tabloid tale from one of… Read More »
AGAINST THE ROPES
The story of how Jackie Kallen made it as a manager in the testosterone-driven boxing game is a saga worthy of the sort of treatment accorded NORMA RAE or even Erin Brockovitch. Alas, AGAINST THE ROPES does not measure up to either of those films, though leading lady Meg Ryan as Kallen does turn in… Read More »
THE DREAMERS
Bernardo Bertoluccis THE DREAMERS is a moody bit of erotica that devolves into a muddle. Trying as it does to mix the heady and revolutionary nature of politics and sex in the 1960s, when it is set, it fails to draw the parallels necessary to elevate the porn-lite into a more profound, not to mention potent, realm… Read More »
MIRACLE
The makers of MIRACLE certainly had their work cut out for them. How to maintain a sense of suspense when the whole reason for making the film was to celebrate how the US Olympic hockey team trounced the unbeatable Soviets at the 1980 Winter Games? With the outcome a foregone conclusion, they decided to drive… Read More »
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN may not have the spectacle of Nicholas Rays KING OF KINGS, but it also lacks that films terminally bland Jesus. Nor does it boast the art direction of Franco Zeffirellis exquisite JESUS OF NAZARETH, but Henry Ian Cusick as GOSPELs Jesus is seems more of this world than Robert Powell, though… Read More »
OSAMA
In the course of Siddiq Barmaks OSAMA, an old man dangles a string of heavy and ornate locks in front of the child whom he has forcibly married and asks her to choose one. He jingles them playfully while looking at her with an indulgent smile because for him it is a mark of his… Read More »
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
There is a reason that the early church did not make the cross its primary symbol. Early tombs display the friendlier, more positive images of the fish, as in, to quote Jesus, “go forth and be fishers of men”, and the good shepherd, as in, again quoting “I am the good shepherd.” People in that… Read More »
IVANSXTC
Based on the Tolstoy story THE DEATH OF IVAN ILLYICH, IVANSXTC takes the Russian bureaucrat from the 19th century and transmutes him into a high-powered talent agent in contemporary Hollywood. Not an intuitive leap, but filmmaker Bernard Rose has taken the essence of the original story, and made it work in the most unlikely of… Read More »
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