With WARFARE, Alex Garland joins ranks with the post World War I poets who put the lie to Horace’s bromide, “Dulce et decorum for patria mori.” Which is to say it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country. Based on the memories of Ray Mendoza and others who took part in a 2006… Read More »
DEATH OF A UNICORN
As Fitzgerald summed it up so well a century or so ago, the rich are difference than you and me, and Alex Scharfman’s sly black comedy, DEATH OF A UNICORN, expounds on that beautifully while also pointing up where the not nearly as rich fall short when in thrall to the 1%. There is nothing… Read More »
A WORKING MAN
There are rules for a Jason Statham film, at least the ones that inhabit that subgenre of action film that he has carved out for himself. A WORKING MAN follows all of them all, because a formula that (usually) works is worth respecting. They include Mr. Statham playing a decent man longing for a quiet… Read More »
LOCKED
LOCKED, the American re-make of Argentina’s 4X4, is an interesting premise beautifully acted, skillfully directed, but ultimately stymied by a script that mires itself in a repetitive second act that doesn’t so much expand as aggravate. The premise, a sad sack of a petty criminal gets trapped inside a luxury SUV tricked out as a… Read More »
BLACK BAG
BLACK BAG is a scathingly brilliant take on truth, lies, and the sanctity of marriage, and the perfect vehicle for Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. A good marriage that is, such as the one enjoyed by George Woodhouse (Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Blanchett), British spies with the highest security clearance They are the perfect… Read More »
THE MONKEY
I do love a prologue that perfectly sets up the film it introduces, and one of the nicest ones I’ve seen lately is to be found in Osgood Perkins’ THE MONKEY, based on a short story by Stephen King and turned into an impudent horror film that is scary as hell and twice as funny.… Read More »
WOLF MAN
WOLF MAN starts out promisingly enough establishing a theme of generational trauma and the eeriness of the wild wood while neatly exploring the hunter-becoming-the-hunted idiom. Full points to the excellent cinematography that captures the opalescent otherworldliness of the mist-shrouded Oregon wilderness, and a cast that takes the story seriously, it’s just a shame that said… Read More »
PRESENCE
Steven Soderbergh’s signature style is one of cool detachment to his characters. His films tackle people in crisis, but the tone is always one of an ersatz cinema verité witness to what is happening to them. In PRESENCE, he has channeled that aesthetic into a ghost story told from the spirit’s point of view. Literally.… Read More »
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN
The point is made several times in the course of A COMPLETE UNKNOWN that its subject, Bob Dylan is a complete jerk. In one particularly satisfying moment, Joan Baez tosses him out of her room at the fabled Chelsea Hotel calling him just that after he makes a booty call and then withdraws into the… Read More »
NOSFERATU
David Eggers, who has a vision of such specific originality and clarity that it might well become a horror subgenre at some point, has taken on not just one iconic film in NOSFERATU, but two, both of whose imagery have become part of the cultural landscape even for those who have never seen NOSFERATU (1922)… Read More »
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