The most potent image in A NIGHTMARE WAKES, a film that is rife with them, is the juxtaposition of blood and ink as Mary Shelley (Alix Wilton Regan) struggles to produce her novel, Frankenstein or A New Prometheus, putatively the beginning of the science fiction genre (pace fans of Cyrano de Bergerac’s A Trip to… Read More »
WANDER DARKLY
WANDER DARKLY is the antidote to the generic rom-com. Set in the subjective viewpoint of a woman who is convinced that she is dead, it explores a relationship gone wrong using the unencumbered honesty of retrospection. The woman is Adrienne (Sienna Miller), who is always quick to point out that the father of her infant,… Read More »
NOW YOU SEE ME 2
The best caper films keep us guessing even while we’re watching the caper in progress. In that way, NOW YOU SEE ME 2 succeeds admirably. The return of the The Horsemen, a band of underground magicians dedicated to truth, justice, and outsmarting everyone around them, including each other, provides several set pieces that are fine… Read More »
MARGUERITE
MARGUERITE is a glorious evocation of philharmonia. Not the orchestra, but the amour fou found in the most passionate devotees of music. In a story about deception, devotion, and transcendence, the object lesson is not about talent, but rather the giddy delight in being totally immersed in the art that you love, even if it… Read More »
Cillian Murphy & Rodrigo Cortes Face RED LIGHTS
When I spoke with actor Cillian Murphy and writer/director Rodrigo Cortes about their film, RED LIGHTS, on June 19, 2012, the challenge was not to give too much away about what tranpires in the film, but still discuss the way it teases the audience about the limits and pitfalls of human perception. Murphy, an actor… Read More »
Armistead Maupin & Patrick Stettner Pay Attention to THE NIGHT LISTENER
The story on which Armistead Maupin based his novel and now film THE NIGHT LISTENER proves the old axiom that truth is stranger than fiction. When I spoke to him and to the director of the film, Patrick Stettner, on July 26, 2006, I was curious what conclusions they had drawn about the human capacity to… Read More »