It is possible that those years of my wayward youth spent toiling in the Valley of Silicon have colored my view of THE CIRCLE. The, at least to me, mundane observations about that particular corporate culture fall with a resounding thud as we see the way work and personal life intermingle, with everything one could… Read More »
THE LOST CITY OF Z — James Gray Interview
James Gray had his work cut out for him with THE LOST CITY OF Z. He had to find a way to include World War I, upper-crust Edwardian Society, and the jungles of Bolivia, in his adaptation of David Grann’s book about Percy Fawcett’s obsession with finding a lost city in the wilds of Amazonia.… Read More »
THE LOST CITY OF Z
THE LOST CITY OF Z opens in the darkness of the jungle. Natives stand in silhouette outlined against fires burning in warning or in welcome. It’s a fitting start to James Gray’s suitably literate adaptation of David Grann’s book of the same name, telling the true story of the obsessions that drove British Major Percy… Read More »
THE DUNNING MAN — Michael Clayton, Kevin Fortuna, and Ian Blume Interview
The one question I knew I wasn’t going to ask the team behind THE DUNNING MAN was the one about that Oscar™-winning film that shares a name with DUNNING MAN’s director/screenwriter, Michael Clayton. Instead, when I spoke with Clayton, writer Kevin Fortuna, editor Ian Blume by phone on March 6, 2017, I started the conversation by… Read More »
SILENCE
Academics are taught to write with a dispassionate yet highly detailed style for their scholarly treatises. That is the approach that Martin Scorsese has taken with SILENCE, his philosophically dense and immaculately rendered film of Shusaku Endo’s book of the same name. The result is a maddening film more to be admired than enjoyed as… Read More »
THE HANDMAIDEN (Ah-ga-ss)
Based on Sarah Water’s novel Fingersmith, Chan-Wook Park’s THE HANDMAIDEN hornswaggles its audience with its opening scenes, and then continues on for its running time to continually confound, shock, and gratify that same audience. Told in four separate chapters that each covers roughly the same action, reality becomes a series of preconceived notions that are… Read More »
AMERICAN PASTORAL — Ewan McGregor Interview
Ewan McGregor had just spent the previous 24 hours flying in from London and then hosting a Q&A for his film, AMERICAN PASTORAL, at the Mill Valley Film Festival, but adrenalin got the better of fatigue when I spoke with him on October 10, 2016. The film charts the life of a Jewish-American golden boy… Read More »
A MAN CALLED OVE (En man som heter Ove)
When we meet the title character of A MAN CALLED OVE, he is having a very bad day. Squabbling with shop clerks, policing his neighbors regarding littering and pets, and being fired at almost 60 from the job he’s had since he was 16. Ove’s face is a study in dour dyspepsia, and his attitude… Read More »
MISS PEREGRINE’S SCHOOL FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN
I have not read the eponymous novel on which MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN Is based, but a quick check of the of the Wikipedia entry for it reveals that for the screen adaptation many of the characters have been modified and plot point changed. This is not uncommon, and when the original source… Read More »
THE LEGEND OF TARZAN
Credit where it’s due. THE LEGEND OF TARZAN doesn’t get everything wrong. For one, It has the virtue of addressing why a perfectly capable, perfectly intelligent black man with a Ph.D., George Washington Harris (Samuel L. Jackson as an actual historical character) needs a white man, that would be Lord Greystoke aka Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård)… Read More »
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