Quiet in tone, and visually arresting, TESLA tells the story of a man whose perspective had only the most tangential relationship to that of the mere mortals who surrounded him. Michael Almereyda film echoes that with a high-minded tone-poem that mixes fact and fiction to achieve an emotional and intellectual, if not factual, truth. The… Read More »
THE CURRENT WAR: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT
THE CURRENT WAR: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT is an elegantly realized intellectual thriller which considers not only the eternal struggle between art and commerce, but also the effect of personalities on inventing the future. In this case, three visionaries, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla. Each with a particular kind of genius, each with idiosyncrasies… Read More »
Jenna Ricker on THE AMERICAN SIDE
Star and co-writer Greg Stuhr sat in on my interview with co-writer and director Jenna Ricker. You can almost hear him off mic adding a word or two, but he chose to remain a suitably enigmatic, though thoroughly affable, presence rather than a participant as Ricker and I discussed their intriguing film noir, THE AMERICAN SIDE.… Read More »
Jim Jarmusch Serves COFFEE AND CIGARETTES
COFFEE AND CIGARETTES is a playful, complex film and so is its maker, Jim Jarmusch. And, fittingly, so was the conversation we had about that film, which opened the San Francisco International Film Festival after playing to sold-out crowds at the Toronto Film Festival. Tesla, metaphysics, and the putative collective consciousness of pigeons all had their moments… Read More »