SONG SUNG BLUE
I didn’t know what to expect from a movie about a man and woman who perform as a Neil Diamond tribute band…but I found myself falling in love with Song Sung Blue. Cheers to writer-director Craig Brewer for recognizing the potential…
AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH
Any filmmaker who asks a moviegoer to sit still for more than three hours had better have a really good reason. James Cameron does not. I lost an afternoon to the latest AVATAR movie and I can’t get it…
JAY KELLY
Watching the latest film from Noah Baumbach, which he wrote with the gifted actress Emily Mortimer, I couldn’t help but picture Marcello Mastroianni, taking stock of his life in Fellini’s 8 ½ and La Dolce Vita. Baumbach’s version of…
Nouvelle Vague
Director Richard Linklater has one of the most unusual resumés of any American filmmaker. He has defined slacker culture—while discovering bright young talent—with his debut feature Dazed and Confused, explored three stages of a relationship (in Before Sunset, Before Sunrise and Before Midnight),…
NUREMBERG
Nuremberg is not a documentary, nor is it a remake of Stanley Kramer’s 1961 Oscar winner Judgment at Nuremberg. It is contemporary in its dialogue and editing style, as if to proclaim right up front that this is not…
GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S FRANKENSTEIN
This is the movie Guillermo del Toro was born to make. He first read Mary Shelley’s novel as a boy and it has informed everything he has done since then. Del Toro admits that he only started working on…
HOUSE OF DYNAMITE
By sheer coincidence, I watched the 1964 movie Fail-Safe just a few weeks ago, and it’s extraordinary how closely it resembles Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite. I’m not talking about plagiarism. The 51-year-old film is very much of its time, along with Seven…
