An egocentric bum transforms the lives of a shy New Jersey garbageman and his sister.
We See The Poem Hartley is a major talent, a unique, competent voice in a bramble of sameness. The last project I saw was “No Such Thing,” which is one of those that if you don’t actively avoid it, it hits you deep in your soul...
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Chabrolet At a certain point in some filmmakers’ careers, the films cease being discrete works of art and start becoming chapters in an engaging life. Eastwood is not the most weighty artist out there. He has made a couple worthwhile films and much chaff but has...
As Lord Voldemort tightens his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds, Hogwarts is no longer a safe haven. Harry suspects perils may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemorts defenses and to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information. Even as the decisive showdown looms, romance blossoms for Harry, Ron, Hermione and their classmates. Love is in the air, but danger lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.
Space Opera Over on FilmsFolding there is a discussion on architecture in film and luckily enough this comes along as a great example of space used intensively and to support the definition of world and some narrative elements. It isn’t art. It breaks no new...
Wealthy and precocious teenager Juliet transfers from England to New Zealand with her family, and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. When their parents begin to suspect that their increasingly intense and obsessive bond is becoming unhealthy, the girls hatch a dark plan for those who threaten to keep them apart.
The Fourth World of the Third Man Perhaps the premier concern of modern filmmakers is locating somewhere in the film exactly where the filmmaking process is. This is often incorrectly called irony, self-reference or the odd construction of reflexivity. I call it “folding” and it seems...
The story of a donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.
Burdens Sometimes the celebration a film has garnered becomes a burden. This is perhaps the most burdened of all the films I know. The Criterion DVD has a French TeeVee program made when the film was released. It features French intellectual celebrities (which is what France...
Telly Paretta is a grieving mother struggling to cope with the loss of her 8-year-old son. She is stunned when her psychiatrist reveals that she has created eight years of memories about a son she never had. But when she meets a man who has had a similar experience, Telly embarks on a search to prove her son's existence, and her sanity.
Two Faces Readers of my other comments on Julianne Moore know that I credit her with being one of the few actresses that can do “folded” acting. That’s where the actor presents us with two characters, one usually _in_ the story and another that engages in...
When Sarah Marshall dumps aspiring musician Peter Bretter for rock star Aldous Snow, Peter's world comes crashing down. His best friend suggests that Peter should get away from everything and to fly off to Hawaii to escape all his problems. After arriving in Hawaii and meeting the beautiful Rachel Jansen, Peter is shocked to see not only Aldous Snow in Hawaii, but also Sarah Marshall.
Puppets This has jokes that often work. It has a genuine pathos that is surprisingly rare and is now the trademark of Apatow productions. It has Hawaii and two women, one pretty the other a beauty. It has a deftly comic foil in the “other boyfriend.”...
When an oil rig in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia proves unproductive, an aircraft crew are sent to shut the operation down and fly them out. On the flight out over the desert on the way to Beijing, Capt. Frank Towns and co-pilot A.J. are unable to keep their cargo plane, a C-119 Flying Boxcar, in the air when a violent sandstorm strikes. Crash-landing in a remote uncharted part of the desert, the two pilots and their passengers -- a crew of oil workers and a drifter -- must work together to survive by rebuilding the aircraft. Soon, low supplies and a band of merciless smugglers add even greater urgency to their task.
Flying Eye This movie was great fun and all the fun was in the eye. If you know the original, it justified itself as a character development project: people thrust into an isolated, life and death situation — various challenges to overcome, various group dynamics to confront....
Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals. There’s a lion tamer who shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.
Architecture Machine My small survey of documentary types has brought me to this, and what a celebration! This is complex, meaningful cinema that just happens to be a documentary. It is intelligent, complex, deliberate and deeply thought provoking. I think it communicates something that isn’t quite right,...
A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl and a detective who's been training him for his upcoming role...
Gossamer Connections I’m like most people I guess. For me, there are movies that are “just” movies, things I enter for fun. And there are others I enter as part of lucid living, what are usually called “art” films. Its an artificial division that exists only because of...
