‘Mustang’ and Other Weekend Discoveries
‘Mustang’ and Other Weekend Discoveries
JAY KELLY
Watching the latest film from Noah Baumbach, which he wrote with the gifted actress Emily Mortimer, I couldn’t help…
From Alfalfa to Rosie the Riveter: A New Way to Watch B Movies—For Free
Last week, during a phone conversation with an old friend who is an eminent film scholar and professor I asked, “Have you heard that Tahiti Honey is streaming for free online?” and he said “What? How can I see it?” Such is the excitement among connoisseurs of the arcane and obscure upon learning that the Paramount Vault YouTube channel is offering a random selection of titles from its vast Republic Pictures library. These are pristine, uncut versions of B-movie titles from the 1940s and ‘50s. Are they any good? That’s all in the eye of the beholder (read: no, not really) but they are rare. Never mind that Paramount is also offering Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 and John Cassavetes’ Love Streams, as well as highlight clips…
Adrift in the Snow: The Revenant
A relentlessly brutal saga of survival and revenge set in the wintry wilderness of the American West, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant is an impressive piece of work, but frankly, it left me cold (pun unavoidable). I can’t deny the impressive physical achievement the director and his gifted cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, have created under the most severe conditions imaginable, but I’d rather watch the making-of documentary than the picture itself. Pundits have been predicting an Academy Award for Leonardo DiCaprio since springtime, and he doesn’t disappoint, delivering a rugged performance as a native guide that bespeaks a level of commitment any actor would be proud of. He is matched by an almost-unrecognizable Tom Hardy (sporting a perfect American accent) as a conniving trapper. They are…
Hateful Eight: A Long Day’s Journey
At the risk of sounding like the little boy in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” I feel I must blurt out a few truths about Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight: it’s ridiculously overlong, needlessly shot in Ultra Panavision 70, and (dare I say it?) downright boring at times. But as Tarantino has an accommodating patron in Harvey Weinstein and no one looking over his shoulder, if he chooses to stretch out a talky mostly sedentary story past the three-hour mark, and shoot it in a 70mm widescreen format better suited to outdoor epics, so be it. And if he wants the great Ennio Morricone to compose a score (including an overture), that also comes to pass. The fact that it’s one of the maestro’s least memorable…
Hateful Eight: A Long Day’s Journey
Hateful Eight: A Long Day’s Journey
Adrift in the Snow: The Revenant
Adrift in the Snow: The Revenant
‘Concussion’ A Showcase For Will Smith
‘Concussion’ A Showcase For Will Smith
