Category: Twos

Stillborn This is purely personal, but I have a few wickets through which a film must pass for me to willingly splice it into my imagination. I’m only talking here about films that present themselves as art. — It has to be competent, which for me can translates into the degree to which it exploits… Continue reading Alicia (1994)

Overdeveloped Oh man, how sad. It is a sad story of failure that itself is a failure. It is placed in a world where the unnatural is impinging on the natural and that is called undesirable. And it itself is so unnatural, so manufactured and manipulative it runs counter to itself. Sure, it is independent… Continue reading The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)

Us Watching Them The only interesting thing about this is the appearance of two energetic actresses. One pleasantly mooneyes at the camera and the other has a strong enough presence to have hope (despite “Pirates” and “Phantom”) that she might not disappoint like so many others. I knew I was in for a stew of… Continue reading Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

Writer’s Blocks In the last year, I saw a film (“In My Father’s Den“) with much the same themes. In that New Zealand film, a man, a celebrated war correspondent returns to his rural home on the death of his father. There are significant unresolved frictions between father and son. The returning man had sex… Continue reading Beautiful Kate (2009)

Dorothy This is some pretty good writing. You know it is pretty good when it deals with ordinary silliness and is directed by a non-entity and yet still engages. This is a fellow that is not afraid to write junk films, but who has also written the amazingly deft self-referential “High Fidelity” and the ambitious… Continue reading Beautiful Girls (1996)

Off Beat Off I will travel to see a film that is “folded“ in the simple sense this one is: writing about writing, especially when the story is historically based and most especially when the literary tradition in question is all about just this manner of folding. I also admire when a writer succeeds in… Continue reading Beat (2000)

Class Yet another example that just plodding through a novel has little to do with making a tenable film. This one just thrashes through the story with nary a nod to cinematic necessities. But it does have Derek Jacobi, an actor with so much presence it almost makes the trip worthwhile. Derek knows how to… Continue reading Basil (1998)

Singable I came to this because I had a bad experience watching the Disney “Cinderella,” and wondered at what passed for acceptable these days. I chose what I thought would be the gene with the lowest standards. I picked wrong. I should have gone with preteen boy anime, because this is pretty darn good. The… Continue reading Barbie as the Island Princess (2007)

Nap Time I’m pretty sensitive to the social implications of black films. Some of us worked pretty hard to provide means for black voices to speak to their own (and other) issues and audiences. Gone are the days where a white establishment could exploit bug-eyed, stupid, violent stereotypes of blacks. Now blacks do it to… Continue reading Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004)

Control There are no films like dance films. Dance is one of the few things that is inherently cinematic, especially when the camera moves, perhaps with energy. Ballet on the other hand is not friendly to film, at least the classical Russian model. The choreography is designed to affect the patron sitting, watching from one… Continue reading Ballerina (2006)