‘BIRDS’ PREYS ON CIVILIZED MOVIEMAKING
What price girl-power? Does the positive energy of a female-centric comic book movie—made by women—compensate for the nihilistic, super-violent nature of its content? Is this really a step forward for women, behind the camera and in the audience? That’s…
DOWNHILL: A SMART COMEDY/DRAMA FOR GROWNUPS
If you’re among the relative handful of people who saw Ruben Östland’s wry Swedish film Force Majeure you’ll know the story of this remake, about an upscale couple on a European ski vacation which puts their relationship to a critical…
REMEMBERING KIRK DOUGLAS
If I could step into a time machine, I would set it for 1981 in San Francisco so I could see Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster play Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in a play called The Boys of Autumn, which…
MY OTHER PASSION: VINTAGE JAZZ
What’s the point of having a website if I can’t indulge myself now and then? Jazz is as vital to me as movies. A boxed CD set came my way late last year and having listened to it in…
THE BIG GOODBYE: CHINATOWN AND THE LAST YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD by Sam Wasson
THE BIG GOODBYE: CHINATOWN AND THE LAST YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD by Sam Wasson (Flatiron Press) Having given us a great biography of Bob Fosse, important books about Blake Edwards and Paul Mazursky, and an engaging account of the making…
