A knight framed for a tragic crime teams with a scrappy, shape-shifting teen to prove his innocence.
Your Local Manager came to this with kids, not knowing anything. The story is ordinary, with features borrowed from a familiar bucket. But it had energy, massive energy in more than one dimension. The title character, the city backgrounds, and most particularly the camera —...
When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in the United States, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, who joins the growing anti-war movement. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.
Entering the Mask say up front that this film will almost certainly go on my list of films to see before you die, only one of two that I allow from each year. Let's get the problems out of the way first. The overall container of this...
An actress’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.
Kieslowski Films Joyce saw this during a period of extreme emotional stress, probably the best possible mode. It was also surrounded by my listening to "Big Fish," Lynch's book, read by himself. The contrast is astonishing: Lynch's banal aphorisms in the book with rich, multilayered...
Dark fairytale about a demonic doctor who abducts a beautiful opera singer with designs on transforming her into a mechanical nightingale.
Man's Machine, God's Tune is a matter of abstraction. Always has been, in everything I suppose. But especially in film. The business is one of sharpening some edges and making others recede so as to cut us in some way. It is a dangerous business...
A rich man learns about a guru who can see without using his eyes. He sets out to master the skill in order to cheat at gambling.
Shifting of Equalities have all watched as Wes moved more and more toward where he finds his soul as a storyteller — a constant movement toward what we have here, powerful enough to earn a place on my list of ‘fours’. Depending on when you...
An exiled magician finds an opportunity for revenge against his enemies muted when his daughter and the son of his chief enemy fall in love in this uniquely structured retelling of the 'The Tempest'.
Amazing Scholarship is without peer, the man of whom Harold Bloom said he invented humanity. ‘The Tempest' is his richest and essentially his last play, clearly about himself and his career. John Gielgud is the finest Shakespearean actor of our age. Greenaway is the most...
Writing with Tea on Oranges is just about perfect for what it is, and what it is elevates it to something that can change you. Life is a matter of stories and also about reflection on self. So all true stories are in some way at...
Geometric Cosmology now, you already know that this is a collection of stories and what makes it novel is the relationship among those stories. Many stories have stories within them. Many stories are mirrored. Characters and sets in one story appear in another, sometimes in...
A beautiful girl, Snow White, takes refuge in the forest in the house of seven dwarfs to hide from her stepmother, the wicked Queen. The Queen is jealous because she wants to be known as "the fairest in the land," and Snow White's beauty surpasses her own.
Stained Glass have a lot of complaints about Disney; what he made personally and the lumbering beast his studio has become. In particular, he murdered one of the most precious literary structures we have in Alice. But in his first big project, he did well enough...
In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.
Saki from the Potter's Hands my film project, I watch a lot of movies. Good and bad. Old, new; new as old, old as "timeless." Nearly all of them take from me. Making art is hard work. Bad artists make you work harder, investing perhaps everything...